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LIFE AND SPEECHES 



OF 




THOMAS CORWIN 

h 

ORATOR 
LAWYER AND STATESMAN 



EDITED BY 

JOSIAH MORROW 




CINCINNATI: 

W. H. ANDERSON & CO. 

1896. 






Copyiight, 1896, by W. H. Anderson & Co. 



PUBLISHERS' NOTE. 



THIS volume owes its origin to some warm admirers of 
the character and genius of Thomas Corwin in the vil- 
lage which was his home. Before the erection of a monu- 
ment over the grave of Corwin in the cemetery at Lebanon 
the suggestion was made that a publication of his speeches, 
with a sketch of his life, would be a better and more enduring 
monument to the memory of the great orator than a shaft of 
marble or granite. 

John P. Comly, a printer, whose last years were passed in 
Lebanon, frequently urged the preparation and publication 
of such a work. He had been one of the publishers of the 
"Speeches of Thomas Corwin, with a sketch of his life, edited 
by Isaac Strohm, " printed at Dayton, Ohio, in 1859, a book 
long out of print; and in 1882 he carried on an extensive 
correspondence with Mr. Strohm, then at Washington, con- 
cerning a proposed revision and continuation of the memoir 
in that work. Mr. Comly succeeded in getting some public- 
spirited citizens of Lebanon interested in the proposed book. 
A circular was issued, and in reply to it so many letters of 
encouragement were received from eminent public men and 
librarians throughout the nation that the publication of the 
work was determined upon. While reading the first proofs 
of some specimen pages, Mr. Comly, like the illustrious au- 
thor of the speeches, was striken with paralysis, and died in 
a few hours. Not long after Mr. Strohm died at his home in 
Greene county. 

Chief among those at Lebanon who gave encouragement 
and substantial aid to the projected volume was the lamented 
Judge Walter S.Dilatush, of the common pleas bench. With- 
in 






IV publishers' note. 

out the generous assistance given by this young judge, who 
was loved while he lived and is remembered with fond regret, 
this volume would hardly have appeared. It was he who 
induced the author of the biography here presented to under- 
take its preparation, and the publishers of the book to give 
it to the public. He did not live to see the publication far 
advanced. After reading the proofs of the completed biog- 
raphy he was seized wath the malady which terminated his 
earthly career before he had reached the prime of manhood. 

The gentlemen who projected the volume selected Josiah 
Morrow to write the life of Corwin, He was the last student 
of law who entered the office of Corwin at Lebanon, and his 
collection of manuscripts and printed papers relating to the 
orator is probably the largest in existence. He had long been 
a careful student of the history of Ohio and the Miami valley, 
and the publishers believe that the story of the life and work 
of Thomas Corwin will be found to be well told in the pages 
prepared by him. 

The volume is presented to the public in the confident be- 
lief that it will be found worthy of a place in the library of 
every admirer of true eloquence and every student of the 
political history of our country. 

The Publishers. 



PREFACE. 



THE memoir of Corwiii in this volume is the first one 
given to the public sufficiently ample in its account of 
his public and private life to entitle it to be called a biogra- 
phy. In its preparation the author has diligently sought all 
sources of information both in manuscript and in print. He 
has received courteous assistance from the family and rela- 
tives of the orator, as well as from lawyers at Lebanon and 
public men who were intimate with him. Not much mate- 
rial for the biography was found ready at hand. Little as- 
sistance was derived from the brief sketches of Corwin pub- 
lished in his lifetime. They were either too much taken up 
with indiscriminate panegyric, or were found to contain such 
careless and inaccurate statements of fact as to preclude the 
supposition that they had been submitted to the subject for 
his approval. A. P. Russell's monograph does not purport 
to be a biography. No published account of Corwin could 
be accepted as a basis for the present work. Facts derived 
from the writer's researches will be found in almost all the 
chapters. Without going into detail, it may be said that the 
account of Corwin 's first appearance in politics and his en- 
trance into public life are here correctly given for the first 
time, as are the remarkable facts concerning his first election 
to congress. 

The volume is intended to contain all the speeches of 
Corwin which were reported and revised in his lifetime for 
publication. The earliest of his efforts which have been pre- 
served, a speech in the Ohio House of Representatives against 
the whipping-post, is given. Throughout his long services 
in both Houses of congress all his speeches reported and re- 

V 



VI PREFACE. 

vised for the printer are given without abridgment. The 
volume concludes with his last speech in congress on the 
perilous condition of the nation in 1861, when he patriotic- 
ally sought for a way to save the Union without civil war. 
Along with his speeches in legislative bodies will be found 
such of his occasional addresses as have been preserved by 
finding their way to the printing-office. In short, the work 
is believed to contain all the public utterances of Thomas 
Corwin which he would have been willing to have included 
in a collection of his speeches. The fact that it has been 
found possible to present in a single volume a complete col- 
lection of the speeches of an eminent orator and statesman 
will make the book all the more welcome to the public and 
private library. 
Lebanon^ Ohio. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Chronological Record ix 

Life op Thomas Corwin. 

The Corwin Name and Family i 

The Father 5 

The Turtlecreek Valley and its Pioneers 9 

The Wagon Boy, and his Education 12 

The Lawyer 17 

Beginnings in Politics 23 

In Congress 29 

Campaign of 1840 33 

Governor and Ex-Governor — 1840- 1844 39 

In the Senate 46 

In the Cabinet 53 

Return to Congress 59 

Minister to Mexico 67 

The Last of Earth 72 

His Most Eloquent Speech 78 

Reminiscences 83 

Speeches of Thomas Corwin 

Inaugural Address as Governor of Ohio. 

Delivered to the Legislature December 16, 1840 . . 99 
Masonic Oration. 

Delivered at Hamilton, Ohio, June 24, 1826 . . . .112 
Address of Welcome to John Quincy Adams. 

At Lebanon, Ohio, November 7, 1843 128 

In defense of Judge McLean. 

In the Senate January 23, 1849 130 

On the Action of Ohio touching Fugitive Slaves. 

In the Senate April 3, 1850 i35 

On the Bill for the Relief of William Darby. 

In the Senate April 23, 1850 137 

VII 



VIII CONTENTS 

PAGE. 
Against Corporal Punishment. 

In the Legislature of Ohio December i8, 1822 . . , 139 
On the Public Deposits. 

In the House of Representatives of the United 

States April 4, 1834 149 

Memorials in Relation to the Public Deposits. ' 

In the House of Representatives April 7, 1834 . . .189 
On the Constitution of Michigan. 

In the House of Representatives December 28, 1835 193 
On the Surplus Revenue. 

In the House of Representatives January 12, 1837 . 197 
On the Cumberland Road. 

In the House of Representatives April 20, 1838 . . 224 
Reply to General Crary. 

In the House of Representatives February 15, 1840 246 
Bount}^ Lands to Soldiers in the Mexican W'^ar. 

In the Senate January 14, 1847 264 

On the Mexican War. 

In the Senate February 11, 1847 277 

Incidental Remarks on the "Three Million Bill." 

In the Senate March i, 1847 315 

The Territorial Government of Oregon. 

In the Senate July 12, 1848 , . 317 

The Clayton Compromise Bill. 

In the Senate July 24, 1848 324 

A Campaign Speech. 

At Ironton, Ohio, August 19, 1859 359 

On the Slavery Question. 

Speech in the Speakership Contest of the House 

of Representatives January 23 and 24, i860 . . . 385 
On the Report of the Committee of Thirty-Three. 

In the House of Representatives January 21, 1861 . 457 



CHRONOLOGICAL RECORD OF CORWIN'S LIFE. 



1794. Born in Bourbon county, Kentucky, July 29th, 

1798. Migrated with his father to the North-west Territory. 

1806. Attended a school in Lebanon taught by an English clergyman of 
good education and attracted attention by his fine elocution in 
school exhibitions. 

1812. Drove a wagon loaded with supplies for Harrison's army through the 
swamps of the St. Mary's country; from this came his sobriquet 
of "the wagon boy." 

1814. Entered the office of the clerk of court as assistant. 

1815. Began the study of law in the office of Judge Joshua CoUett. 

1817. Admitted to the bar in May, and opened a law-office in Lebanon. 

1818. Appointed prosecuting attorney of Warren county, and served in that 

capacity ten years. 

1821. Elected a representative in the legislature, and re-elected the next 

year. ^ 

1822. Married to Miss Sarah Ross at Lebanon, November 13th. 

1824. Supported Clay for president, Jackson, Adams, Crawford and Clay 
being candidates. 

1827. Advocated the re-election of President J. Q. Adams and was one of 
the secretaries of the Ohio state convention of the supporters of 
Adams. 

1829. Again elected a representative in the legislature. 

1830. Delivered an address at the commencement of Miami University. 

1830. First election to congress. 

1831.}^ . • 

1840 \ Representative m congress. 

1834. First speech in congress, April 4th. 

1840. Nominated as the Whig candidate for governor at Columbus, Febru- 
ary 22nd, and resigned his scat in congress to take effect in May. 



%. CHRONOLOGICAL RECORD. 

184'^ I Governor of Ohio. 

1842. Candidate for re-election as governor and defeated — his only defeat 
at the polls. 

1844. President of the Ohio Whig state convention; unanimously tendered 
the nomination for governor for the third time, which he declined. 

1844. His name placed at the head of the Clay electoral ticket in Ohio. 

1844. Elected United States senator, December 5th, for six years from 
March 4th, 1845. 

IH^n" i United States senator. 

1847. Speech in the senate against the Mexican war, February 11th. 

1853 I Secretary of the treasury in the cabinet of President Fillmore. 

1854. Established a law office at Cincinnati, retaining his residence at 
Lebanon. 

1858. Elected to congress by the Republicans. 

1860. Re-elected to congress. Supported Lincoln for president. 

1860. Chairman of a select committee of the house, consisting of one from 
each state to consider the national perils. 

1861.) _ . 

1864 i United States mmister to Mexico. 

f 

1864. Established a law-office in Washington. 

1865. Died in Washington, December 18th. 



LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 



THE CORWIN NAME AND FAMILY. 



The Corwin family is one of the oldest in America. Fourteen 
years after the arrival of the Mayflower, Matthias Corwin, the origi- 
nal ancestor of the family in this country, is found settled at Ipswich, in 
Massachusetts Bay Colony, whence he soon removed to Long Island. 
Thomas was of the seventh generation descended from him. Efforts 
have been made, it must be confessed without much success, to trace 
the Corwins far back in the history of Hungary and to find the ori- 
gin of the name and family in the celebrated Hungarian king, Mat- 
thias Corvinus. The researches of the pains-taking author of the 
Corwin Genealogy,* who carefully traced the history of the Ameri- 
can families of Corwin, Curwen and Corwine, failed to establish a 
connection of any of these names with any family of Hungary or of 
the continent of Europe, but he found that the immigrant ancestors 
of all the familes bearing these names probably came from England. 

In reply to a letter of inquiry from the author of the Corwin 
Genealogy, Thomas Corwin wrote in 1859 that he had received let- 
ters and communications written to show the connection of the 
family with the Hungarian Corvinus, and that at the time he read 
them their account seemed to him quite plausible, and added: "I could 
never bring myself to feel interest enough in the subject to with- 
draw me from necessary labor long enough to make such researches 
as to enable me to form even a plausible guess as to the persons who 
might have been at work for ten centuries back in the laudable effort 
to bring me, nolens volens, into this breathing world on the 29th of 

*The Corwin Genealogy (Curwin, Curwen, Corwine) in the United States by 
Edward Tanjore Corwin, New York: 1872. 

o (1) 



2 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

July (a most uncomfortable time of the year), in the year of 
grace, 1794." 

The Hungarian origin of the family and name which may have 
been at first only a surmise came to be regarded as probable and has 
been published as an established fact. It was probably first sug- 
gested by the similarity of the surnames Corwin and Corvinus. 
Even the christian name of the Hungarian king frequently recurs in 
the Corwin genealogy, three Matthias Corwins being found in the 
direct line of the American ancestors of Thomas. The swarthy 
complexion of the great orator could be readily explained by the 
blood of the Huns in his veins by those who were disposed to 
accept the conjecture of a royal descent. Unfortunately there is no 
documentary or historical evidence that the family came from Hun- 
gary, and the conjecture of such an origin is even without the cor- 
roboratory support of a family tradition handed down through many 
generations. The fact, however, that the most eminent man of the 
name at one time regarded this theory of the derivation of his family 
and name as plausible, when he read it hastily amid the cares of a 
busy life, forbids our laying it aside as unworthy of consideration 
and will lend interest to a glance at the history of the surname Cor- 
vinus. 

The good king Matthias Hunyady, whose name is more familiar 
as Matthias Corvinus, ascended the throne of Hungary at the age of 
eighteen in 1458, and after a prosperous reign of thirty-two years died 
in 1490. He was not only an able and warlike monarch, who subdued 
rebellious nobles and restored order, law and prosperity, but he gave 
encouragement to learning and governed his people with such 
impartiality that his name long survived in the popular adage, "King 
Matthias is dead, justice is gone." His father was John Hunyady, 
also called Corvinus, who from a humble origin rose to the com- 
mand of the Hungarian army and was elected supreme captain and 
governor. Gibbon tells us that John was the son of a Wallachian 
father and a Greek mother, and that his surname, Corvinus, was 
derived from his native village. This village is on the Danube, in 
Wallachia. Corvinus is a Latin adjective or epithet derived from 
corvus, a crow or raven, and as a surname was borne by a single 
branch of the Valerian family at Rome. The legendary origin of the 
surname is that it was given to Valerius, a tribune of the soldiers, 
B. C. 349, who when he was engaged in a conflict with a Gaul of 



THE CORWIN NAME AND FAMILY. 6 

powerful strength and stature, was assisted by a crow which attacked 
the eyes of his enemy. 

There have been family traditions which refer the Corwins to a 
Welch, and others to a German origin. There is a town named 
Corwen in the parish of Corwen, in Merionetshire, Wales, but no 
family bearing this name has been found in that vicinity. The town 
is supposed to have received its name from the Welch words cacr 
wen, meaning white stone, descriptive of the white rocks at the back 
of the village. Historical characters named Corvinus and Corvin 
have appeared at various times in Germany. The Curwens were an 
ancient family of Cumberland, England, who have written their sur- 
name Curwen since the fifteenth century, before which it was Culwen. 
In Ireland Corin and Curran are common orthographies of what may 
have been originally the same name. In the United States Corwine 
is sometimes met with. In the family of Thomas Corwin the name 
was sometimes pronounced Curwen and Curran even after the emi- 
gration to Ohio. 

Turning from the legendary and mythical to the more authentic 
family history in America, the reader most fond of genealogical re- 
search must rest content with a descent traced through six genera- 
tions on American soil. The ancestors of the great orator in this 
country were for the most part plain and respectable people, gen- 
erally tillers of the soil and none of them distinguished for genius, 
wit or learning. Among them no one has other claim to our atten- 
tion than as the progenitor of a distinguished man except the father 
of Thomas, who was a man of note in the community in which 
he lived. 

Matthias Corwin, the first of the name in America, was among 
the earliest immigrants of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and is 
found at Ipswich in 1634. It is believed that he came from England 
and had arrived in the colony a few years before, probably about 
1630. About 1640 he removed to Southhold, Long Island, and 
was one of the leading men in the first settlement of that place. 
Here he lived for the last eighteen years of his life, and here he died 
in 1658, His last will and testament was recorded in the Southhold 
records September 15th, 1658, and is yet preserved, and in it his 
name appears as Mathias Curwen. The name of his immediate 
descendants in the same records is written Corwin. The early pro- 
nunciation of the name on Long Island is said to have been Currin. 



4 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

The descendants of the immigrant ancestor resided for several 
generations on Long Island. John, his oldest son, died at South- 
hold September 25th, 1702, leaving three sons, the second of whom, 
Matthias, was the father of Jesse, the great grandfather of Thomas. 
His son, Jesse, the grandfather of Thomas, was the first to emigrate 
to the west. He was born on Long Island in 1736, moved from 
his native place to Morris county, New Jersey, thence, in 1776, to 
Fayette county, in western Pennsylvania, and thence, in 1785, to 
Bourbon county, Kentucky, where he died in 1791. Before leaving 
Long Island he married Kezia Case, who, after having been a resi- 
dent of five states, died in Ohio in 1816, aged seventy-nine years, 
and the tombstone of Kezia Corwin, grandmother of Thomas Cor- 
win, is still to be seen in an old grave-yard at Lebanon. Jesse and 
Kezia Corwin were the ancestors of the numerous Corwins of War- 
ren county, Ohio, all of their eight children, except one daughter, 
becoming residents of that county. 



THE FATHER. 



The name of the father of Thomas Corwin occupies a conspic- 
uous place in the history of the county, in which the greater portion 
of his adult life was passed. Matthias Corwin was born in Morris 
county, New Jersey, February 19th, 1761, and was the eldest of 
the eight children of Jesse Corwin, and his wife Kezia Case. His 
parents had been married on Long Island, and moved to New Jersey 
soon after. Near the commencement of the revolutionary war the 
family removed to Fayette county, in western Pennsylvania, and 
here on April 8th, 1782, Matthias married Patience Halleck, who 
was born in the same year as himself The mother of Thomas Cor- 
win belonged to an intellectual family, and from her it has been 
claimed the orator inherited much of his genius. Her married life 
continued thirty-six years, and until her death at Lebanon, Ohio, in 
the fifty -seventh year of her age. She was the mother of nine 
children, and was the companion of her husband in the establish- 
ment of three homes in the forest, two in Kentucky and one in 
Ohio. She should be remembered as one of the pioneer women 
of the Ohio valley who patiently endured the privations and hard- 
ships of a life in the wilderness. 

In 1785 the Corwin family removed to Kentucky. Matthias 
first settled in Mason county, but afterwards in Bourbon county, 
where his distinguished son was born on the 29th of July, 1794. 
At this time many of the settlers in Kentucky were discouraged on 
account of defects in the titles to their lands, and large numbers of 
them crossed the Ohio to find homes in the Northwest Territory. 
In 1798 Matthias Corwin, with his family of six children, his wid- 
owed mother and most of his brothers and sisters, moved again and 
established himself in the Miami valley, near where Lebanon now 
stands. He was a widely trusted man of affairs, and after the forma- 
tion of a state government and the people were permitted to elect 

(5) 



6 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

their own officers, was repeatedly chosen to important public posi- 
tions. He was elected one of the first justices of the peace in War- 
ren county, a member of the first board of county commissioners, 
and representative in the legislature by annual elections for ten years. 
He was speaker of the House of Representatives in 1815 and 1824, 
and an associate judge of the court of common pleas from 1816 to 
1823. To this last position he was chosen by the legislature. He 
was also appointed by the governor one of the appraisers of dam- 
ages resulting from the construction of the Miami canal, and a trus- 
tee of Miami University. These public stations, with which he was 
honored without his own seeking, show that he had the confidence 
and respect of his neighbors and acquaintances. The following facts, 
illustrative of his character, are derived chiefly from Dunlevy's His- 
tory of the Miami Baptist Association: 

Judge Corwin was a man of sound common sense, and his judg- 
ment in the common affairs of life was frequently sought by the 
pioneers among whom his life was passed. He had only an ordi- 
nary English education, and made no pretensions to a knowledge of 
literature or science, but he possessesed a discriminating mind that 
enabled him to distinguish pretended from real science. For an 
ostentatious display of learning or false pretense to superior knowl- 
edge he had an instinctive contempt. 

He was through life distinguished for his probity. He carried 
his notions of honesty much further than men generally do, con- 
demning every shade of concealment or act calculated to deceive, as 
no better than direct fraud. All speculation, in the common accep- 
tation of the term, was in his view wrong. He lived as a matter of 
choice on a farm, and took great pleasure in making it a pleas- 
ant home. In his habits he was industrious, regular and abstemious, 
and did not permit any under his control to spend time idly. 

He was always a peacemaker, and often selected as an arbiter 
to settle disputes between neighbors. All had the fullest confidence 
in his integrity. The office of justice of the peace he restored to 
its original intention of settling disputes, as well as constraining 
peace, and sometimes to effect this object he resorted to measures, 
which, if not strictly legal, were always really just. It is told of 
him that a suit once being brought before him by a man who had 
been grossly defrauded in a trade of watches, he required both of 
the watches to be placed on the table before him as the evidence was 
given, and, the fraud being palpable, as he gave his decision he took 



THE FATHER. 7 

up the two watches, declared the contract of exchange void on 
account of fraud, and then restored to each his original watch. 

Judge Corwin was a member of the Baptist church at Lebanon 
for a period of thirty years. During most of that time he was the 
principal and most active deacon of that church. When at home he 
was always at his post, and so constant was he in attendance at the 
meetings that if he was at any time missed when at home it was 
known that something unusual had detained him. He was frequently 
one of the messengers of the church in the association, often a mes- 
senger of the association to some corresponding body. In the min- 
utes of the Miami Association, the name of no layman occurs so 
frequently as that of Matthias Corwin. As in society, so in the 
church of which he was so long a member, the greatest confidence 
was placed in him and much deference was yielded to his opinions. 
He possessed that firmness and independence of mind which led him 
to investigate all opinions for himself before he adopted them. He 
was, therefore, slow to receive any new dogma on any subject. 

He is described as above the medium height, very stout, with 
dark skin, black hair and black eyes. He died of bilious fever 
September 4th, 1829, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. The fol- 
lowing is an extract from an obituary notice of Matthias Corwin, 
which is believed to have been written by his intimate personal 
friend, Judge Francis Dunlevy: 

"Judge Corwin, no doubt, partook of the frailties belonging to human- 
ity, but we think we have never known one within the range of our knowl- 
edge who had fewer faults. If we should search for them we know not 
where we would find one. He was not great nor learned, nor possessed of 
any dazzling talents to attract the admiration of the world ; but he had quali- 
ties much more enviable and enduring. Such was the candor, the mildness, 
the uniformity of his conduct and so unexceptionable his walk and conversa- 
tion, that even amidst party strife and sectarian controversy, he never knew 
an enemy. By all his name was respected, by those who knew him best and 
longest, we might say, venerated." 

After the death of his wife. Patience, Matthias Corwin married 
Mrs. Elizabeth Corbly, January 2nd, 1820, by whom there were no 
children. Below are given the names and the dates of the births of 
his nine children, some of whom were born in Pennsylvania, some in 
Kentucky and some in Ohio. 

Elizabeth, born January 27th, 1783. 
Benjamin, born October 28th, 1785. 



8 LIFE OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

Matthias, born September 29th, 1789. 
Mary, born December 4th, 1791. 
Thomas, born July 29th, 1794. 
Jesse, born June 30th, 1797. 
Rhoda, born November 4th, 1799. 
Phebe, born August 9th, 1802. 
Amelia, born March 9th, 1804. 

Three of the sons of Matthias Corwin became lawyers. Mat- 
thias, after his admission to the bar, became clerk of the court of 
common pleas ; he was also a captain in the war of 1812 ; he died in 
1822, aged thirty-three years. Jesse was a lawyer at Hamilton, and 
served as representative in the legislature of Ohio from Butler 
county in 1831. 



THE TURTLECREEK VALLEY AND ITS PIONEERS. 



The Corwins were among the earliest pioneers on the Turtle- 
creek, a stream which empties into the Little Miami after winding 
for a dozen miles through a valley unsurpassed in richness and 
natural beauty. At the confluence of two branches of this stream 
is Lebanon, the seat of justice of Warren county, around which 
to-day finely cultivated farms, comfortable farm houses, good grav- 
eled roads and beautiful scenery attest the foresight of the men who 
selected this valley for their homes when it was covered with the 
primeval forest. 

Judge John Cleves Symmes, of New Jersey, contracted with 
the Colonial Congress for the purchase of all the lands between the 
Miamis at 66f cents per acre, and when his lands were surveyed the 
Turtlecreek valley fell in the third range of townships, called the 
Military Range because it was to be paid for by military land war- 
rants granted for services in the revolutionary war. In this range 
are Hamilton, Monroe, the lands of the Shakers of Union Village, 
Lebanon and South Lebanon. The fertility of this range was dis- 
covered by Judge Symmes in an early exploration, and described by 
him in a letter to General Jonathan Dayton, his associate in his 
great land speculation. No part of Symmes's extensive purchase 
became more famous for the natural excellence of its soil than the 
valley of the Turtlecreek. 

Ichabod Corwin, uncle of Thomas, was the first white man to 
settle with his family where Lebanon now stands. He had first seen 
and admired this region while serving in a military expedition frorn 
Kentucky against the Indians, and he purchased a tract on the north 
branch of Turtlecreek for his future home before the Indian wars had 
ended. After the treaty of peace at Ft. Greenville he erected his 
cabin, and in March, 1796, brought his family to their home in the 
wilderness. In 1798 Matthias Corwin, father of Thomas, came from 
Kentucky and settled one-half mile from his brother, his widowed 

(9) 



10 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

mother, brothers and sisters accompanying him. Thomas was at 
this time four years of age. It is told that when the pioneers from 
miles around assembled to raise the cabin of the newly arrived 
immigrants, Matthias took his gun and going but a short distance in 
the woods killed a supply of wild turkeys for the bounteous dinner 
always prepared on such occasions. The wild deer were common. 
The next spring a band of Indians encamped on the hill side not far 
from the Corwin home, and the red men were not infrequently seen in 
the vicinity for several succeeding years. They respected the treaty 
of peace so far as to refrain from murder, but they often stole 
horses. In the summer of 1796 Ichabod Corwin had all his horses 
stolen by the Indians. His first crop of corn was cultivated with 
oxen, and though it grew amid the roots and stumps of a new clear- 
ing, such was the fertility of the soil that it yielded one hundred 
bushels to the acre. » 

The father of Thomas Corwin was a poor man. He had con- 
tracted for his farm when land could be bought for less than a dollar 
an acre and on easy payments, yet he purchased only one quarter of 
a section, when many of the settlers bought an entire section, and it 
seems that he did not complete his payments for two years after his 
removal to his new home. The date of his deed is July 1st, 1800. 
His land was sold to him by Major Benjamin Stites, the explorer of 
the lands between the Miamis, who gave Symmes much information 
concerning them and who became the owner of several thousand 
acres on the Little Miami. In this deed, which was recorded in Cin- 
cinnati, Benjamin Stites, of Hamilton county in the Territory North- 
west of the river Ohio, conveyed to Matthias Corwin, of the same 
county and territory, in consideration of one hundred dollars, one 
hundred and sixty acres. The land thus conveyed is situated about 
one half mile north east of Lebanon and was the boyhood home of 
Thomas Corwin. 

At the time of the removal of the father of Thomas Corwin to 
his new home, it was known that the treaty of Ft. Greenville had 
secured permanent peace, and the tide of immigration so long de- 
layed by savage hostility flowed in and before the close of the 
eighteenth century the pioneer's ax rang out in every part of the 
Turtlecreek valley. In September, 1802, one month before the 
election of delegates to the convention to form a state constitution, 
the town of Lebanon was plotted, Ichabod Corwin being one of the 
four original proprietors of the first one hundred lots. In order to 



THE TURTLECREEK VALLEY AND ITS PIONEERS. 11 

secure the seat of justice the owners of the land upon which the 
town was laid out donated the proceeds of the sale of one half the 
lots to aid in the erection of a court house and jail. 

The settlers in the forest among whom Thomas Corwin grew 
up belonged for the most part to the middle class and were men of 
more than average intelligence and worth. He learned to respect 
the pioneers of the west and in the halls of Congress paid more 
than one eloquent tribute to their sturdy virtues. His boyhood home 
was in a wild country. The rich and exuberant garb which nature 
gave it, while attesting the fertility of the soil, greatly augmented 
the labor of the settler. The noble trees of the primitive forests 
stood as enemies against which a war of extermination was to be 
waged. An undergrowth of spice bushes was spread over all the 
richer parts, almost as thick and impenetrable as the canebrake of 
Kentucky, and, like the cane, it disappeared with the advance of 
civilization. The gathering of brush into heaps for burning was 
among the earliest of the outdoor labors of the settler's boy, and his 
hands and cheeks were often smutted with the smoke and coal of 
the clearing. 

To form a path for his children to the school-house the pioneer 
on Turtlecreek sometimes harnessed a horse to a log and drove 
through the tall weeds and bushes. Smooth foot-paths winding 
through the deep woods led from one cabin door to another. When 
a settler was sick his neighbors aided him with their gratuitous labor, 
planting his corn, tiUing or gathering it for him, and in winter sup- 
plying his family with firewood. Cincinnati, thirty miles distant, 
was the nearest point at which merchandise could be purchased ; it 
was also the seat of justice until the organization of a state govern- 
ment and the post-office for all the Turtlecreek valley until 1804. 
All the houses on Turtlecreek in the early boyhood of Thomas Cor- 
win were of logs. The first brick residence in Lebanon was not 
built until 1806, when he was twelve years old. The first school- 
house he attended was of round logs put up by the neighbors in a 
single day, with no tool but the ax, and stood a mile from his 
home. The first churches in the valley were more pretentious and 
made of logs hewed inside and out, and were comfortable places of 
worship, warm in winter and cool in summer. 



THE WAGON BOY AND HIS EDUCATION. 



The most interesting chapter in the biography of a distinguished 
man is the story of his boyhood and education. Especially is this 
true of one who rose to eminence without a liberal education. 
The three American statesmen who, without the aid of the academy 
or college, became most distinguished for popular eloquence were 
Patrick Henry, Henry Clay and Thomas Corwin. Of these three 
orators we have the fullest and most trustworthy account of the 
boyhood, youth and education of Corwin, and for its fullness and trust- 
worthiness we are indebted chiefly to Anthony Howard Dunlevy, of 
Lebanon, who was the author of a newspaper sketch of Corwin, 
published in 1840, and of various sketches of pioneer history in 
which mention is made of the Corwin family; he also read at a meet- 
ing of the bar at Lebanon after the death of Corwin a paper giving 
in some detail the early life and the literary and legal education of 
his departed friend. Dunlevy and Corwin were the sons of neigh- 
bors; their families were intimate and attended the same church ; 
they were nearly of the same age; they attended the same primary 
school, and as young men were members of the same debating clubs 
and literary societies, studied law at the same time and in the same 
office, were admitted to the bar on the same day, began to practice 
in the same courts and were life-long and intimate friends. 

In his fifth year Thomas Corwin attended his first school in the 
first school-house erected on Turtlecreek. It was taught then and 
for a short time only by Francis Dunlevy, afterwards common pleas 
judge. For some years afterward, young Thomas had the advan- 
tage of only occasional schools, taught by self-appointed teachers, for 
the most part in the winter months, in a log school-house erected 
not by taxation or subscription but by the labor of the settlers, its 
ample fire place occupying the greater portion of one end of the 
structure. In 1806, Rev. Jacob Grigg, a Baptist clergyman, who 



THE WAGON BOY AND HIS EDUCATION. 13 

had received a good education in England, opened a school which 
afforded better instruction for the youth of Lebanon, the town then 
numbering some forty families. Thomas was at this time about 
twelve years old and in the two years this school was continued 
attended in the winter only, his services being required at home 
during all the busy seasons of farm labor. In these two winters he 
received the greater portion of all the education he ever acquired 
at school. 

This teacher encouraged school exhibitions, in which recitations 
and dialogues were given, exercises in which both pupils and parents 
became interested. For the want of a hall a sort of bower was 
erected in front of the little school-house to serve as a stage for the 
young performers. In these exercises, according to Dunlevy, who 
was a pupil in the school, was first noticed Thomas's talent for pub- 
lic speaking, his fine elocution attracting attention. In a dialogue 
found in the school books entitled "Dr. Neverout and Dr. Doubty," 
taking the part of the former and his brother, Matthias, the latter, 
he gained universal applause. From the time of his attendance at 
this school he had a strong desire for a liberal education, but his 
father had already determined to give an elder son, Matthias, an 
education to fit him for a learned profession, and he felt that he 
could make a scholar of but one son. Thomas was, therefore, kept 
at home to work while Matthias was sent to school. This was a 
severe trial for Thomas, but he submitted and labored faithfully on 
the farm. 

The elder brother received a good education. An almanac for 
the year 1812, printed at Lebanon, contains on the title page the 
name of Matthias Corwin, jun., as the author of the astronomical 
calculations. The books with which Matthias was supplied while at 
school served Thomas a useful purpose in his self education, and he 
made diligent use of them in his leisure hours. He also early 
formed a taste for reading good literature. 

Besides his labor on the farm, he was often engaged in wagon- 
ing the produce of the farm to Cincinnati, and on the return trip 
goods for the Lebanon merchants. He drove his two or four horse 
team with skill over the bridgeless and ungraveled roads, which in 
the wet season often became almost impassable. Five or six 
wagons would often travel together, and when a team was stalled in 
the mud young Corwin's skill would be called into requisition. The 
drivers would camp out over night, and the wit and humor of the 



14 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

dark-complexioned wagon boy enlivened the early hours of the night 
around the camp fire. His nickname, "the wagon boy," which was 
supposed in a political campaign to win for him popular favor even 
more than "the mill-boy of the slashes" did for Henry Clay, was 
obtained chiefly from his services as the driver of a wagon load of 
provisions for the army in the war of 1812. 

When the second war was declared against England he was 
nearly eighteen years of age, and was a witness of stirring times at 
his home in its opening scenes. Lebanon was the rendezvous for 
troops raised from the counties of Hamilton, Butler, Warren and 
Clermont. Four companies of riflemen, one of artillery and one of 
light infantry were assembled in the town in the month of August, 
1812, whence they took up the line of march for the Indian frontier 
at Urbana. Matthias Corwin, jun., commanded the company of 
light infantry. Scarcely had the troops left the little village when 
news was spread over the country of Hull's surrender at Detroit and 
that the whole frontier of Ohio was exposed to the attack of the 
combined British and Indian forces. This intelligence produced con- 
sternation throughout the Miami valley, but it animated the whole 
population with a military spirit. In a few days a large and undis- 
ciplined multitude assembled on the frontier and General Harrison 
took command. Farmers were appealed to for wagon loads of pro- 
visions for this large and hastily gathered military force. Thomas 
Corwin hastened with his father's wagon and team, and reached the 
army when encamped on the waters of the St. Mary's which empties 
into the Maumee. 

This wagon driving incident in the youth of Corwin was fre- 
quently alluded to in his political career. In the campaign of 1840 
the Whig orators of Ohio were able to touch the sympathies of a 
grateful people by allusions to the humble but useful and patriotic 
service of the boy who drove his wagon load of supplies to relieve 
the army which protected the northern and western frontier from the 
ravages of a savage foe, and the happy coincidence that the wagon 
boy was a candidate for governor and the commander of the army a 
candidate for president. At the great mass convention held in 
Columbus February 22nd, 1840, which nominated Corwin for gov- 
ernor. Gen. Charles Anthony, of Springfield, an effective orator, 
aroused much enthusiasm by the following passage in his speech : 

' ' When the brave Harrison and his gallant army were exposed to the 
dangers and hardships of the northwestern frontier — separated from the 



THE WAGON BOY AND HIS EDUCATION. 15 

interior, on which they were dependent for their supphes, by the brush wood 
and swamps of the St. Mary's country, through which there was no road — 
where each wagoner had to make his way wherever he could find a passa- 
ble place, leaving traces and routes, which are still visible for a space of 
several days' journey in length — there was one team which was managed by 
a little, dark-complexioned, hardy looking lad, apparently about fifteen or 
sixteen years old, who was familiarly called Tom Corwin. Through all of 
that service he proved himself a good 'whip' and an excellent ' reinsman.' 
And in the situation in which we are about to place him, he will be found 
equally skillful." 

Thomas continued his labors on his father's farm for some two 
years after his return from the frontier. An injury to his knee 
received while driving a team rendered him incapable of physical 
labor for a long time, during which he had recourse to his books, 
and to them he devoted with close application the months which 
would otherwise have been tedious. Before attaining his majority 
he acquired some knowledge of Latin and other branches of academ- 
ical learning, and this was doubtless attained from the use at home 
of his brother's text books. He early had a thirst for general 
knowledge, and, according to Dunlevy, "he was always engaged in 
studying some book or subject, whether at school or not, when not 
employed in other business. This continued to be his habit through 
early life, and he never lost more time in amusement or company 
than necessary courtesy required." 

His surroundings were not unfavorable to his mental growth. 
Only a mile from his home was the court-house, where he could 
sometimes hear able lawyers. The Lebanon library society, char- 
tered in 1811, with John McLean (afterwards Justice McLean) as 
one of its directors, had a small but valuable collection of books. 
The village debating society kept up intellectual activity. The elder 
Corwin was at this period almost constantly a member of the legis- 
lature, and sometimes speaker of the House, and doubtless encour- 
aged his children in the pursuit of knowledge. 

About the time he attained his majority he determined to be- 
come a lawyer and entered the office of the clerk of court, then 
under the charge of his brother, Matthias, and soon after com- 
menced the regular study of the law under the direction of Joshua 
Collett. His fellow student, Dunlevy, bears testimony to the faith- 
fulness with which he pursued his study of the prescribed course in 
law, and continued his reading of history and the English classics in 



16 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

prose and poetry. He seldom permitted the social gatherings of the 
young to win him away from his studies. Almost the only recrea- 
tion of the law student was found in attendance, on winter evenings, 
at the debating societies. Such societies existed in almost every 
neighborhood at that time, and in Lebanon all men of talent and lit- 
erary taste were members of one or rrtore of them. Lawyers, 
judges, ministers, physicians, farmers and mechanics participated in 
the debates. In these societies young Corwin "gained for himself 
a high reputation for youthful eloquence." He was admitted to the 
bar at Lebanon by the supreme court, which held a term once 
each year in every county. A. H. Dunlevy says: 

"He confined himself to his studies with an ardor and industry unus- 
ual even in that day. By this persevering industry he not only read the 
usual course of law prescribed at that time, and which was more extensive 
than has been required in later years, but he made himself master of 
English history, and, in a good degree, of the English prose and poetic 
classics. At the May term of the supreme court in 1817, we applied for 
admission to the bar. It was then the practice of the court to examine appli- 
cants themselves, though they frequently called on members of the bar to 
take part in asking questions. For this purpose we were taken into a large 
room of the principal hotel of the place in the evening after the adjournment 
of the court, and, there to my surprise, I found quite a gathering of ladies 
and gentlemen who had come to witness the examination. Mr. Corwin's 
reputation had brought them there. Under the circumstances the examina- 
tion was a thorough one and we were subjected to a severe ordeal. But Mr. 
Corwin at least passed it in triumph. His first speech before the court was 
made soon after and was a pledge of his future distinction at the bar." 



THE LAWYER. 



At the time of his admission to the bar Corwin was nearly 
twenty-three. He was doubtless well prepared for his profession, 
not only by industrious and thorough work as a law student and 
his services in the office of the clerk of court, but by his extended 
course of reading, which made him a well and even a liberally edu- 
cated man. Lawyers at that time, even in the western woods, 
were fond of illustrations from history and polite literature, of 
repeating Latin maxims to the court and adorning their speeches to 
the jury with quotations from classic authors; and in the popular 
address and oration sometimes expected of them they aimed at a 
style of rhetorical finish, not often attempted by their modern suc- 
cessors. Mr. Corwin had already made a reputation as a fine public 
speaker in the debating society and he at once took a high position 
as an advocate and soon became well known in all the courts he 
attended as a brilliant and able lawyer. He had traveled over a 
hard and toilsome road in preparing himself for the law, but he was 
spared the trying ordeal of patient waiting and slow climbing 
upward after his admission. 

The court of common pleas under the first constitution of Ohio 
was composed of a president judge in each circuit, and three associ- 
ate judges in each county, all chosen by the legislature. The associate 
judges were farmers or other laymen, appointed on the theory that 
the bench should have upon it one member of the legal profession to 
decide questions of law and three others not lawyers to furnish com- 
mon sense. It may be here stated, however, that Francis Dunlevy, 
the president judge first elected by the legislature for the circuit 
embracing the southwestern third of the state, and who had pre- 
sided in the courts at Lebanon until about the time of Mr. Corwin's 
admission to the bar, was not a regularly educated lawyer, and was 
admitted to practice after his retirement from the bench ; he was, 
3 (17) 



18 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

however, a man of liberal education and had served in the territorial 
legislature and in the convention which formed the state constitution. 
When Mr, Corwin commenced practice his preceptor in the law, 
Joshua Collett, was president judge, his father one of the associate 
judges and his brother clerk of court. 

In less than a year after his admission to the bar Mr. Corwin 
was appointed by the court prosecuting attorney of his county, and 
he continued to serve in that capacity for ten years. The compensa- 
tion allowed by the court for prosecuting pleas in behalf of the state 
was meager, but the office brought him into contact with the members 
of a grand jury each term and thus served to give him a wide 
acquaintance with the leading men in all parts of the county. He 
also learned much of men of a different character. In his speech 
against corporal punishment, delivered in the legislature in 1822, he 
said: "In the prosecution and sometimes in the defense of criminals 
I have had opportunities of viewing and considering the occult and 
secret sources of crime more distinctly than I possibly could had I 
been an unconcerned observer. I will venture to assert that there is 
not in the whole circle of society a situation so favorable to the dis- 
covery of the true nature and causes of crime as a practice at the bar 
of a court of criminal jurisdiction." 

Mr. Corwin rode the circuit of the courts of his judicial district, 
embracing five or six counties, as was the uniform custom of the 
lawyers of his time, whether they were old in the profession and 
had an established practice or were young, briefless and penniless 
members in search of business. They traveled on horse-back, 
sometimes several of them together, with their saddle-bags under 
them, an overcoat and umbrella strapped behind the saddle, and 
leggings, often well spattered with mud, tied with strings above 
and below the knees. Riding the circuit became less common in the 
decade between 1830 and 1840 and finally ceased. Subsequent to 
1840 it was continued only by the older lawyers who had an estab- 
lished practice in the different counties of the circuit which made 
the toilsome journeyings away from their homes and families remu- 
nerative. The legal business at each seat of justice came to 
be conducted chiefly by resident lawyers, but as late as 1843, the 
year succeeding Mr. Corwin's retirement from the office of governor, 
he was an attorney in twelve cases, all pending at the same time in 
the courts of Butler county. E. D. Mansfield, in his "Personal 
Memories," narrates the following: 



THE LAWYER. 19 

"In the summer of 1825 I took a short journey through the Miami 
country on horseback. I was riding alone in a piece of woods between 
Hamilton and Lebanon when I overtook a young man also on horseback. 
There was something in his appearance which struck my attention. He was 
very dark in complexion and hair, with a sort of swarthy look, more like an 
Indian than the whites. He was full-fleshed, with a quick, piercing eye and 
a pleasant expression. We made ourselves known, and I found he was Cor- 
win, afterwards known as Tom Corwin, the wagon boy. He got this sobri- 
quet from the fact that he had driven wagons in his youth. He was now at 
the bar and was returning from the court at Hamilton to his home at 
Lebanon." 

On November 13th, 1822, Mr. Corwin was married at Lebanon 
to Miss Sarah Ross, a sister of Thomas R. Ross, then a member of 
congress. His position at the bar enabled him to support a family 
in comfort, to obtain for his office the works of the best legal 
writers of his time and to build up gradually a fine library of miscel- 
laneous books, but he did not accumulate much of worldly goods. 
In the management of his own affairs he was not selfish or even 
prudent and he did not have the skill and thrift with which to make 
his professional earnings grow into an ample fortune. He never 
became a man of wealth. 

In the earlier years of Mr. Corwin's practice lawyers' fees were 
low in Ohio. A charge of a hundred dollars for an attorney's ser- 
vices in a single case was rare; one of a thousand dollars almost 
unheard of Ejectment suits which most frequently arose from 
disputed boundaries in the Virginia military district east of the 
Little Miami, were perhaps the most lucrative part of his early practice. 
It may be safely assumed that at that time seven hundred and fifty 
dollars was above rather than below the average annual income of 
the lawyers practicing at Lebanon. The salary of the president 
judge, a position coveted by able lawyers in full practice, was $750 
from the organization of the state government until 1816 when it 
was increased to $1,000. 

In 1830 attorneys and physicians were subject to a tax of five 
mills on each dollar of their annual income. The records of the 
county commissioners contain a list of the attorneys practicing in 
Warren county that year. At that time John McLean was a justice 
of the supreme court of the United States; Joshua Collett, judge of 
the supreme court of Ohio; and George J. Smith, president judge 
of the court of common pleas. The following is the list of practic- 



20 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

ing attorneys : Thomas R. Ross, Phineas Ross, Benjamin CoUett, 
Thomas Corwin, Francis Dunlevy, A. H. Dunlevy, William McLean 
and Jacoby Hallack. The sum of $750 is placed opposite each 
name as the income from the practice of law for the year, excepting 
those of Thomas Corwin and Jacoby Hallack, the income for the 
former being placed at $1,000, and that of the latter at $500. As 
the figures were merely estimates by the commissioners, and not 
returns made by the attorneys themselves, they lose much of their 
value as evidences of the real profits of the profession at that time. 

For about a dozen years Mr. Corwin devoted himself to his 
profession without much mixture of politics with law. Though twice 
in this period chosen to the legislature, he was elected not as a party 
candidate, and the duties of the office required only a stay at the 
state capital during two brief sessions of the general assembly. 
After his election to congress, in 1830, he was more of a public man 
than a lawyer, although he continued to practice law until his death, 
except while a member of the cabinet and minister to Mexico, 
With all his brilliant abilities he never took a position among the 
truly great lawyers of the nation. What would have been his rank 
in his profession had he not been immersed in politics is only a 
matter of speculation. It is certain that in a dozen years his fame 
as an advocate was wide spread over his state. A merely profes- 
sional reputation is ephemeral. The fame of a great lawyer who 
has given an undivided allegiance to his profession scarcely survives 
one generation, and the name of Corwin would hardly live even in 
tradition had he not become a great political orator and been hon- 
ored with high public stations. 

Mr. Corwin's distinction at the bar was perhaps chiefly due to 
his remarkable gifts of eloquence, wit and humor ; but he was also 
distinguished for a native keenness of discrimination which prevented 
him from using any authority not strictly in point, or any evidence 
that could be turned against him. It is not improbable that his 
readiness in speaking, his natural brightness of intellect, the fascina- 
tion of his manner and his infinite humor, all tended to give him the 
reputation of a brilliant rather than an able and learned lawyer ; but 
on great occasions he could bring forth in his arguments to the court 
and jury a wealth of legal and miscellaneous learning which was the 
result of laborious study. 

In his demeanor at the bar he did not forget the dignity becom- 
ing a court of justice. Though he was always called Tom Corwin, 



THE LAWYER. 21 

had been reared among pioneers who wore rough homespun or 
buckskin and was famihar with the boisterous hilarity of the tavern, 
he was always a gentleman. He learned to be careful about his 
apparel and at least after he acquired distinction was generally the 
best dressed man in the court. His coat was of rich, plain black ; 
his waistcoat frequently of fine black velvet and his shirt-front 
ruffled in the latest style of the times. His hair was carefully 
brushed and he shaved himself every day. In conducting a trial he 
was invariably the perfect gentleman. He was respectful to the 
court, courteous to the jury and kind and considerate to his adver- 
saries and the witnesses. There is abundance of evidence that his 
uniform urbanity in the court-room was noteworthy. Judge George 
J. Smith, of Lebanon, who was his first law student, as a lawyer 
tried scores of cases with him, and as a judge presided in the courts 
in which he practiced, wrote after Corwin's death : 

" When I came to the bar in 1820 Mr. Corwin was in the full tide of 
professional success. His character as an able advocate and as an eloquent 
forensic orator was already well established. For nearly nine years we 
attended the same courts, and our friendship became warm and lasting. In 
1829 the young man whose legal education he had superintended was ele- 
vated to the bench, and for seven years, except when absent on public busi- 
ness, he regularly practiced in the courts over which I presided. With his 
professional brethren, his deportment was always genial, kind and gentle- 
manly. On no occasion, so far as my recollection now serves me, have I 
seen him engaged in the petty squabbles — crimination and recrimination — 
from which the bar, unfortunately, is at times not wholly exempt. His 
weapon was satire, brilliant, incisive and effective, but with so keen an edge 
that it left no sting behind it. His deportment to the court was uniformly 
courteous, deferential and respectful." 

He did not often accept invitations to make public speeches. 
At the fourth of July celebrations in his own town he delivered the 
oration in 1822, and read the Declaration of Independence in 1825. 
He made a Masonic address at Hamilton on St. John's day, 1826, 
and addressed the Union literary society of Miami University at the 
annual commencement exercises September 28th, 1830. His speech 
in the legislature against the bill for the reinstatement of public 
whipping as a penalty for petit larceny is the earliest of his efforts 
which have been preserved. It was made at a time when a large 
portion of the people of Ohio who had come from states which re- 
tained whipping as a punishment for stealing looked upon it as the nat- 



22 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

ural and obvious penalty for this offense ; in their minds it was insep- 
arable from petit larceny. The economy of the whipping post, 
which would relieve the tax-payers from the cost of maintaining cul- 
prits in prison, was also urged. The remarks of the young legisla- 
tor show the repugnance of refined sensibilities to this barbarous 
punishment, as well as a philosophical insight into the nature and 
objects of criminal laws. The bill was defeated. 

As he rode the circuit he not only earned a reputation for tal- 
ents, but unconsciously he was all the while gaining a wonderful 
popularity. He was one of whom it may be said that he was born 
to be popular, and he could not help attracting the love and regard 
of the people. He was liked by judges, lawyers, farmers and inn- 
keepers. His striking and intelligent countenance was pleasing and 
winning ; he was always polite and affable ; his social qualities were 
of the highest order; the finest talker of his time, a wonder- 
ful story teller, his humor inimitable, his genius often shining 
to better advantage in conversation than in the public address, he 
was a delightful companion. At the time of his election to the office 
of governor he was the most popular man in Ohio. The qualities 
which in the young lawyer attracted regard and admiration in the 
social circle were never lost, and, on the last night of his life, drew 
around his chair to hear his conversation the most distinguished men 
in the national capital. 



BEGINNINGS IN POLITICS. 



In 1821, four years after he commenced the practice of law, 
Mr. Corwin consented for the first time to be a candidate at the 
polls. Nominations by the caucus or convention method had not 
yet been introduced in Ohio and any person could become a candi- 
date for an elective office by the simple announcement of his name. 
Mr. Corwin was first announced with his consent as a candidate for 
representative in the legislature on July 23rd, 1821, in the Western 
Star, the only newspaper printed in his county. The vote he 
received on the second Tuesday of October was a proof of his popu- 
larity at home. There were six candidates for the two seats in the 
lower branch of the legislature to which the county was entitled, and 
Corwin was probably the youngest of them, and at least three of the 
candidates had already served in the legislature and were among the 
best known public men of the county. Corwin received the second 
highest number of votes and the next year he and his co-representa- 
tive were re-elected without opposition.* 

Mr. Corwin's course as a legislator seems to have been entirely 
satisfactory to his constituents and he could without doubt have 
continued in the office had he desired to do so. After two elections 
he declined further service. The erroneous statement in the article 
on Corwin in the American Cyclopedia that he was first elected to 
the legislature in 1822 and served seven years has been taken as 
accurate by several writers. He was a member of the general 
assembly three times only, viz: in 1821, 1822 and 1829, and each 
time he was one of two members from his county in the lower 
house. The files of the Lebanon newspaper show that he declined a 
re-election in 1823 and that at no time was he a candidate for the 
legislature and defeated. 

■••-The vote for two representatives from Warren county in the general assembly 
was, in 1821 : John Bigger, 1042; Thomas Corwin, 971; Francis Dunlevy, 701; George 
Kesling, 437; James W. Lanier, 219; Warner M. Leeds, 155. In 1822: Thomas Cor- 
win, 1 162; John Bigger, 1 147. (23) 



24 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

At the time of his first two elections there were no questions of 
party poHtics entering into the canvasses. Throughout his youth the 
great mass of the voters and nearly all the leading men of his 
county were of the Jeffersonian school and in that school he had 
been reared. His father was a presidential elector on the Madison 
ticket in 1812. The name Federalist had become a term of reproach. 
A' candidate was never announced as a member of a political party 
or a supporter of this or that man for president. His success at the 
polls depended more on his personal popularity and supposed fitness 
for the office than on his views on national questions. This was true 
even in elections for congress, and a biographer of Justice John 
McLean makes the astonishing statement that when a lawyer of 
Lebanon and a candidate for re-election to congress in 1814, 
McLean received not only every vote cast for congressman in his 
district, which included Cincinnati, but the vote of every voter who 
went to the polls. 

At the first two presidential elections after Mr. Corwin became a 
voter, although an electoral ticket was put forward in Ohio in oppo- 
sition to the nominees of the Republican congressional caucus, it 
was without hope of election, and, the result being foreknown, but a 
small proportion of the voters of the state went to the polls in the 
November elections of 1816 and 1820. In the campaign of 1824 
when the congressional caucus system received its death blow and 
there were fout^ candidates for president, all claiming to be Jef- 
fersonian Democrats, and three of them with electoral tickets in 
Ohio, the leading men of Warren county who had been united in the 
elections of Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, w^ere for the first time 
divided in their choice for president. The name of Judge Francis 
Dunlevy was placed on the electoral ticket for John Quincy Adams ; 
that of John Bigger, an ex-speaker of the Ohio house of represen- 
tatives, on the ticket for Henry Clay ; Thomas R. Ross, then a mem- 
ber of congress, when the election went to the House, voted for 
Crawford, while Jackson received a plurality of the popular vote of 
the county. The friends of all the candidates for president united in 
the support of Jeremiah Morrow for governor, who was this year a 
candidate for re-election, and received nearly all of the votes of the 
county. The total vote in the county for president was small, being 
a thousand less than had been cast in October at the state election, 
and stood: Jackson, 750; Adams, 502; Clay, 311. There was no 



BEGINNINGS IN POLITICS. 25 

electoral ticket in Ohio for Crawford. At this election young Cor- 
win supported Clay, who carried the state of Ohio. 

Before the next presidential election the people of the county 
began to be divided into two parties. The administration of John 
Quincy Adams from the first day of its existence met with an oppo- 
sition more determined and virulent than had ever before assailed a 
president. The charge of "bargain and corruption" between the 
president and his secretary of state, Henry Clay, though shown to 
be false, was an effective weapon against the administration, and the 
cry "hurrah for Jackson" rang throughout the Miami valley. Mr, 
Corwin's position was that of a firm but temperate and dignified sup- 
porter of the administration. He was a leading spirit in the first 
mass convention in his county of the friends of the administration, 
held in the court house at Lebanon November 17th, 1827. Ex-Gov- 
ernor Morrow presided, and on taking the chair addressed the meet- 
ing at length ; Judge Joshua CoUett and John Bigger were the secre- 
taries, and Thomas Corwin chairman of the committee on resolu- 
tions, which reported an elaborate address favoring the re-election 
of Mr. Adams. At the Ohio state Adams convention, held at 
Columbus December 28th, 1827, the chairman was ex-Governor 
Morrow; the secretaries, Thomas Corwin, of Warren, and William 
Daugherty, of Franklin. 

In 1828 caucus nominations for members of the legislature 
were made for the first time in Warren county and a Jackson ticket 
put in the field. The convention system of nomination was de- 
nounced by the anti-Jackson party as an undemocratic contrivance 
which abridged the liberties of the people. At the elections this 
year the voters of the county were nearly evenly divided between 
the parties. In October the Jackson candidate for governor received 
a majority of 62 votes and the Jackson candidates for the legislature 
were elected by small majorities, but at the presidential election in 
November, Adams received a majority of 37 over Jackson. 

The result of the next election was in much doubt and in 1829 
both parties induced their strongest men to become candidates for 
the legislature. Thomas R. Ross, ex-member of congress, and 
General Benjamin Baldwin were nominated by a caucus of the 
Jackson party. Jeremiah Morrow and Thomas Corwin, both against 
their personal inclination, consented to the use of their names in the 
doubtful contest. They were not the nominees of any caucus but 



26 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

were known to be opponents of the Jackson administration. They 
were elected by decided majorities. * 

Thus Mr. Corwin after an interval of six years became again a 
representative in the legislature. The house to which he was elected 
consisted of thirty-seven Jackson and thirty-five anti-Jackson men. 
Thomas L. Hamer, the talented young Democratic lawyer of Brown 
county, was elected speaker, and his course as a presiding officer 
was characterized by fairness and impartiality rather than a narrow 
partisan spirit. In appointing the fifteen standing committees he 
appointed a majority of Jackson men on eight, and a majority of 
anti-Jackson men on seven. He appointed Mr. Corwin chairman of 
the judiciary committee and Mr. Morrow chairman of the finance 
committee. None of Mr. Corwin's speeches at this session have 
been preserved, the newspapers giving only meager reports of his 
remarks on the matters upon which he was called to give his reasons 
for his vote. In a debate participated in by several members on a 
bill authorizing a survey for the extension of the Miami canal from 
Dayton to Ft. Defiance, he made a speech which was highly com- 
mended by those who heard the discussion as an eloquent and mas- 
terly argument in favor of the measure, which became a law. 

In 1830 Mr. Corwin was urged to become a candidate for con- 
gress. His district was composed of the counties of Butler and 
Warren, and a large majority of its voters were favorable to Jack- 
son. In Butler county the Jackson men had outnumbered their 
opponents more than two to one in the state and presidential elec- 
tions of 1828. Before the division of the people into political par- 
ties, when there was a better prospect of election, Mr. Corwin had 
been earnestly solicited by his friends and admirers to run for con- 
gress, but he had from term to term declined in favor of some other 
candidate for whose political aspirations he entertained a tender 
regard. His wife's brother, Thomas R. Ross, had been elected to 
congress three times. In 1824 Mr. Ross was defeated in this district 
by John Woods, of Hamilton, who served two terms. In 1828 Mr. 
Woods, who opposed the election of Jackson to the presidency, was 
defeated by James Shields, of Butler county, the Jackson candidate, 
who received a large majority of the votes of the two counties. 
Mr. Shields was a candidate for re-election, having been nominated 

*Vote in Warren county for two representatives in the legislature, October, 1829: 
Jeremiah Morrow, (anti-Jackson) - - 1079. Thomas R. Ross, (Jackson) - - - - 846. 
Thomas Corwin, (anti-Jackson)- - - 1058. Benjamin Baldwin, (Jackson)- - -815. 



BEGINNINGS IN POLITICS. 27 

in the summer of 1830 by a Jackson convention held at Monroe. 

Mr. Corwin finally consented to the announcement of his can- 
didacy, perhaps with little hopes of his election, and was doubtless 
as much surprised as his friends were gratified by the handsome 
majority he received. The district remained Democratic and a ma- 
jority of the voters at the same election voted for the Jackson candi- 
date for governor.* 

The canvass, so far as can now be learned, was conducted with- 
out public speaking on either side. The only speech known to have 
been delivered by Mr. Corwin in the district in the canvass was a 
literary address at the commencement of Miami University a few 
weeks before the election, and the invitation for this address was 
accepted before he became a candidate. The result of the election 
was largely due to the personal popularity of the successful candi- 
date and no doubt in part to other causes which cannot now be 
well ascertained. 

In the latter years of his life Mr. Corwin sometimes amused his 
friends by telling them of what he called "the night-shirt issue," on 
which he was first elected to congress. The story as he told it was 
that at the beginning of the campaign he had little or no hope of 
election, but he learned that the serious charge was made against 
his opponent of habitually sleeping in a night-shirt ; then he began 
to have hopes of election, feeling confident that the Jacksonian democ- 
racy would not unite in support of a man who was too good to 
sleep in the shirt he wore in the day time. No allusion to such a 
charge in this canvass is to be found in the files of the Lebanon 
newspaper which supported Mr. Corwin, but the story was doubtless 
not entirely without foundation. In the campaign of 1828, when 
Mr. Corwin's opponent was first nominated for congress, there were 
published certificates that prominent men of the Jackson party had 
declared that Mr. Shields was not fit for congress, and that when a 

*Vote cast in the second Ohio congressional district, October, 1830: 

For Congressman — butler. warren. total. 

Thomas Corwin, (anti-Jackson) .... 105 1 1741 2792 

James Shields, (Jackson) 1243 816 2059 

Corwin's majority, 733 

For Governor — 

Robert Lucas, (Jackson) 1490 1128 2618 

Duncan McArthur, (anti-Jackson) - - . 815 1422 2237 

Lucas's majority, 381 



28 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

member of the legislature he was only fit to correct the bad gram- 
mar of a bill and to stand before a looking-glass and powder himself; 
that he always made his appearance in the House with his hair 
powdered and his cambric shirt on, but at night he exchanged his 
cambric shirt for another, and that he himself had said that it was 
his usual custom to powder himself in the morning, and that when 
at home he powdered his hair before going out to plow. Doubtless 
in 1830 something was heard about the candidate who kept a night- 
shirt and powdered his hair, but these were hardly the great issues 
on which Corvvin was first sent to congress. 

The politics of the two counties of Butler and Warren which 
formed the district from which Thomas Corwin was first sent to 
congress presents a curious subject for the student of sociology. 
These two counties were formed by the same act of the legislature ; 
they were settled about the same time by the same class of hardy 
pioneers ; they lie side by side and have the same fertile soil ; for 
more than a quarter of a century their inhabitants were alike in 
politics and gave similar majorities for the same state and national 
tickets, but about 1830 they separated politically, and from that time 
have never given majorities for the same national ticket. This fact 
does not admit of an easy explanation. The war of 1812 in some 
parts of the country produced a reorganization of parties, but in 
these counties it did not change their names or principles ; both were 
equally enthusiastic in the support of that war. Jackson had his 
strongest following in the farming districts, but both these counties 
were agricultural. Certain it is that in the days of General Jackson, 
Butler became decidedly Democratic and Warren decidedly anti- 
Democratic, and they have so continued ever since. 



IN CONGRESS. 



Corwin took his seat as a member of the house of representa- 
tives at the first session of the twenty-second congress, which was 
commenced on December 5th, 1831, and was terminated on July 
17th, 1832, a session, in the opinion of Benton, the most memorable 
in the annals of our government, because it was the one at which the 
great contest for the renewal of the charter of the bank of the 
United States was brought on and decided. In the list of members 
of both houses of this congress are found the names of many men 
of brilliant talents, some already illustrious and others who after- 
wards became so. In the senate were Webster, Clay, Benton, 
Ewing, Clayton, Tyler and, presiding as vice-president, Calhoun ; in 
the house, John Quincy Adams, Edward Everett, Rufus Choate, 
Richard M. Johnson, John Bell and James K. Polk. Both branches 
of congress as well as the executive department were controlled by 
the Democrats. 

At this time Mr. Corwin was thirty-seven years old ; he had been 
elected under circumstances that must have been gratifying; he had 
already won distinction for oratory at the bar, in the legislature and 
by occasional addresses ; he could hardly have been unconscious of 
his ability to hold the attention and to sway the minds of a legisla- 
tive body, yet he permitted both sessions of the term to which he 
had been elected to pass without once taking the floor. The first 
session of the second congress to which he was elected had nearly 
ended when on April 4th, 1834, he rose to make his first speech in 
the house, in the introduction to which he referred to " the silence I 
have rigidly maintained for nearly three sessions of congress." On 
this occasion he made an elaborate argument on the public deposits, 
a subject which had for three months engrossed the attention of 
congress, and spoke for an hour on three different days. His 
reported speeches number but six in the nine years of his continu- 
ous service as a member of the house. In his last speech in con- 

(29) 



30 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

gress before resigning to become a candidate for governor, he could 
say with a good grace: "This house, Mr. Speaker, knows that I am 
not given to much babbhng here ; yes, sir, you all know that like 
Balaam's ass, I never speak here until I am kicked into it. I may 
claim credit, therefore for sincerity, when I declare that a strong 
sense of justice alone could have called me into this debate." 

From his first entrance in congress Mr. Corwin was, by his 
votes, a supporter of the measures of the new political party, which 
about this time took the name of National Republican, and not long 
after. Whig. He voted for the recharter of the bank of the United 
States at his first session, and throughout his terms of service favored 
the protective system in levying duties and internal improvements 
by the federal government. Mr. Corwin was elected a representative 
for five successive terms, and in all that time there was a Democratic 
president in the White House and a Democratic speaker sat in the 
chair of the house of representatives at every term except the last. 
He would have been unable to increase his popularity at home 
by securing federal appointments for his constituents had he desired 
to do so. 

After his first election he was placed in a new congressional dis- 
trict which gave decided majorities against Jackson and VanBuren, 
and thenceforward he could become a candidate without much 
doubt of his election. His name was uniformly placed before the 
people as a candidate by the common consent of his party friends 
and without the formality of a district convention. In important 
political campaigns he made speeches in his district and at other 
places in the state, and sometimes held joint discussions with his 
competitor for congress or some other Democratic speaker ; but large 
political meetings were not common in Ohio at this period. His dis- 
trict was composed of the counties of Warren, Clinton and High- 
land, and his opposing candidates in this district were, in 1832, 
Nathaniel McLean, of Warren ; in 1834, Joseph J. McDowell, of 
Highland, and in 1836, Samuel H. Hale, of CHnton. In 1838 he 
was elected without opposition. 

Rarely as Mr. Corwin appeared in debate he became known as 
one of the best speakers in the house. One of his contemporaries 
wrote in the American Review: "The announcement of his name 
was an assurance of profound stillness in the house. That still- 
ness continued while he occupied the floor, except as it was some- 
times broken by demonstrations of excitement, such as wit, argument 



IN CONGRESS. • 31 

and eloquence like his must occasionally produce. " Some of his 
best speeches were delivered with little time for preparation. He 
concluded his elaborate and able speech on the surplus revenue in 
1837 with an apology for detaining the house too long, which he 
found in the fact that he had not "the most distant thought of 
addressing the house until the afternoon of the preceding day and 
without further time for arrangement, of topics, he could not hope to 
preserve that order which is favorable to brevity as well as perspic- 
uity. " His great speech in favor of the continuation of the Cum- 
berland road through the western states is a fine illustration of the 
truth that solid arguments can be enlivened with wit and humor with- 
out losing their effectiveness. 

The most famous of his speeches of this period is his reply to 
General Crary, on February 15th, 1840. Isaac E. Crary was a 
member from Michigan, who had taken the occasion of a discussion 
on the Cumberland road to attack the military record of General 
Harrison, who had already been nominated as the Whig candidate 
for president. The defense of the hero of Tippecanoe, who lived 
in Ohio, fell upon Mr. Corwin, and the next day he took the floor 
and delivered the speech which was read throughout the nation and 
has never been forgotten. It had already been determined that Cor- 
win should be the Whig candidate for governor of Ohio. The occa- 
sion was one that seldom comes in the life of a politician. Never 
before were sarcasm and satire so effectively employed in the debates 
of congress, and they were all the more effective because the speech 
abounded in good humor and was without bitterness or any unkind 
or unfriendly allusions to the gentleman to whom he replied. As- 
suming that the member from Michigan, who was a militia general, 
had derived his knowledge of the art of war from services as a 
militia officer in time of peace, he described the ridiculous features 
of the old system of militia training which had already fallen into 
general contempt. The speaker had himself often been a witness 
of the scenes of intoxication and fighting at the general muster of 
the militia, and there is a tradition that he had employed the same 
weapons of satire and had used the same images and given much the 
same description, in the court of a justice of the peace near his 
home, while defending a militiaman charged with an assault and bat- 
tery committed upon an officer on muster day. It was then his pur- 
pose to overwhelm with ridicule the pompous militia officer who was 
the prosecuting witness. 



32 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

The reply to General Crary gave Thomas Corwin a national 
reputation as a wit. Compliments were showered on the orator 
from his associates in congress and newspaper writers at the capital. 
John Bell, of Tennessee, speaking in the same debate said he had not 
in the twelve years of his service in the house, heard a more elo- 
quent or effective speech. John Quincy Adams referred to the van- 
quished militia general as "the late Mr. Crary of Michigan." A 
writer for a New York newspaper said that it was the general opin- 
ion that this was the most effective speech delivered for many years 
in congress; Mr. Corwin, he wrote, "possesses all the qualifications 
of mind and manner to make him a perfect orator. He puts his 
antagonist to death in a manner so courteous and refined, with so 
much good nature and for so many good reasons that, like Hastings 
before Burke, the opponent, guilty or not guilty, feels that he 
deserves his condemnation." The following abridgment of an article 
written at Washington after the delivery of this speech, and pub- 
lished in the New York Morning Herald, gives an estimate of Mr. 
Corwin's rank as an orator and debater at this time : 

" Mr. Corwin, of Ohio, followed in defense of General Harrison and 
made one of those speeches which he alone is capable of making. Mr. 
Corwin, permit me to say, is the ablest, most eloquent and successful speaker 
in the American congress ; his manner and his matter are purely original ; 
they hold no alliance or affinity with the eloquence of Webster or Clay and 
Mr. Corwin in his career as a statesman or as an aspirant for parliamentary 
fame, does not come in collision with either of these eminent men. He is 
remarkably well read in the light and polite literature of the age; he is an 
elegant scholar without being pedantic ; a happy and good natured strain of 
irony and satire plays throughout all his parliamentary efforts ; and he proba- 
bly more resembles Sheridan than any man that has flourished since the 
palmy and bright days of the British house of commons. Mr. Corwin makes 
up the larger part of his speeches with Attic salt and refined humor, but 
when he suffers himself to soar to the higher regions of pathos he is 
pathetic beyond conception ; and nothing can excel the majesty and beauty 
of his bursts of passion or the severity of his chaste and withering invective. 
He made his appearance in congress about ten years ago but never spoke till 
the year 1834 to my knowledge; since that period he has spoken on four 
occasions, and though he spoke on each occasion impromptu, he won by his 
efforts a reputation that might well be envied. He is excessively modest and 
notwithstanding he has been many years in congress he experiences great 
embarrassment on first taking the floor and it is only after the most pressing 
persuasion that his friends can get him to speak at all," 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1840. 



Corwin was nominated as the Whig candidate for governor of 
Ohio at a state convention held in Columbus on the 21st and 22nd 
days of February, 1840. Harrison had been nominated for presi- 
dent at a convention held at Harrisburg, December 4th, 1839. The 
Whigs of Ohio had but recently become reconciled to the convention 
method of nominating candidates for state and county offices, but 
their electoral tickets in preceding presidential campaigns had been 
selected at state conventions. The Ohio Whig convention of 1840 
was called to nominate an electoral ticket and a candidate for eov- 
ernor, the chief executive being the only state officer elected by the 
people under the first constitution of Ohio. It was a large mass- 
convention of voters from all parts of the state, and, although it was 
winter time, its sessions were held in the open air. The whole of the 
second day's proceedings, as well as the marching of the procession, 
were in continuous torrents of rain. 

The selection of a candidate for governor to be reported to the 
convention was referred to a large committee consisting of ten 
persons from each of the nineteen congressional districts. On the 
first ballot of the committee Thomas Corwin received 120 out of the 
190 votes. His name was then unanimously agreed upon by the 
committee and he was unanimously nominated by the convention. 
He accepted the nomination in a letter from Washington dated 
March 18th, and tendered his resignation of the office of representa- 
tive in congress to take effect in May following. On the 4th day of 
May Mr. Corwin attended a great Whig meeting at Baltimore, at 
which some of the most eminent Whig members of congress were 
present, among whom were Clay, Webster, Preston, Crittenden and 
Fillmore. 

The campaign of 1840 was the most remarkable in the history 
of our country, and nowhere was it more remarkable than in the state 
in which Harrison and Corwin lived. The rising of the people in 
4 (33) 



34 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

behalf of the Whig candidates seemed to be spontaneous, and the 
whole state teemed with monster mass-meetings and processions and 
resounded with the noise of drums and fifes. Gray-haired soldiers 
of the revolution marched in the processions. Farmers with their 
wives, sons and daughters in jolting wagons left their homes at mid- 
night to hear Tom Corwin the next day. The larger meetings were 
measured in acres. The largest meeting of the campaign in the 
United States was at Dayton, Ohio, at which General Harrison spoke, 
and it was reported that the multitude covered ten acres. 

It has been said there was more enthusiasm and less thought in 
this campaign than in any other. Many novel features made it 
highly picturesque on the part of the Whigs, but some of them were 
of a character to make the judicious grieve. The log-cabin, hard- 
cider and coon-skin were used as symbols by the Whigs to show 
their sympathy with the poorest and humblest classes. General 
Harrison was said to live in a log-cabin, but his residence at North 
Bend was rather a stately mansion, and though a part had been 
constructed of logs, it was all covered with boards and painted 
white. Log-cabins were placed on wheels and drawn to the meet- 
ings, and others were raised in the public places of large cities and 
the people were invited to drink hard-cider in them out of gourds. 
From the last two syllables of Tippecanoe the canoe became a famil- 
iar object in the processions, and immense frames fashioned after the 
canoe were placed on wagons and drawn by six or more horses a 
distance of many miles to political meetings. 

The novel features of the campaign were devised soon after the 
nomination of Harrison, and were seen at large political gatherings 
even in the winter before the presidential election. At the conven- 
tion which nominated Corwin log-cabins and canoes were conspicu- 
ous in the procession. One of the canoes, drawn by eight horses, 
was seventy feet long, held fifty-six persons, and had been made out 
of the trunk of an immense sycamore tree. In the same proces- 
sion were large log-cabins, well built, roofed with clap-boards, hav- 
ing doors, windows and chimneys, some of them with fires burning 
and smoke issuing from the chimneys. It was said that some of 
these cabins had been brought on wheels a distance of from fifty to 
one hundred miles. Cuyahoga county sent to the convention a full 
rigged brig from the lake, a distance of one hundred and forty miles. 
It had been delayed on its long journey by rain-storms ; it had been 
wrecked ; the wheels on which it was placed sank up to their hubs in 



CAMPAIGN OF EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY. 35 

mud, but it arrived in the afternoon of the second day, and was 
drawn in the procession by six white horses. A less common fea- 
ture was an immense ball, perhaps ten feet in diameter, on which 
were inscribed catch phrases of the campaign and the names of the 
states which had already given Whig majorities. It was propelled 
by men at the ends of a pole which served as an axle. Such a ball 
was seen on Broadway in Cincinnati and was said to have been rolled 
from the eastern cities. As it was rolled a song was sung or 
chanted. 

With heart and soul, 
This ball we roll. 

As rolls this ball, Farewell dear Van, 

Van's reign does fall You're not our man ; 

And he may look To guard the ship 

To Kinderhook. We'll try old Tip. 

Some one has said that Harrison was sung into the presidency. 
Songs were written without number and sung at the Whig meetings. 
The two songs of the campaign which became most famous through- 
out the land originated in Ohio. The first of these was the "Buckeye 
Cabin Song," written by Otway Curry, of Marysville, Ohio, and first 
sung at the convention which nominated Corwin by a band of sing- 
ers in a cabin made of buckeye logs, taken to the convention 
from Union county. The other was "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too," 
written by A. C. Ross, of Zanesville. Benton complained that 
even steamboats and public places were crowded with parties singing 
Whig doggerel ballads. Some verses are given as specimens. 

Oh, where, tell me where, was your buckeye cabin made ? 

Oh, where, tell me where, was your buckeye cabin made? 
'Twas built among the merry boys who wield the plow and spade, 

Where the log-cabins stand in the bonnie buckeye shade. 
Chorus: 'Twas built, etc. 

Oh, why, tell me why, does your buckeye cabin go? 

Oh, why, tell me why, does your buckeye cabin go ? 
It goes against the spoilsman — for well the builders know 

It was Harrison that fought for the cabins long ago. 
Chorus: It goes against the, etc. 



Old Tip, he wears a homespun suit. 
He has no ruffled shirt — wirt — wirt. 
But Mat he has the golden plate 
And he's a little squirt — wirt — wirt. 



36 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

What has caused this great commotion — motion — motion 

Our country through ? 

It is the ball a rolling on 
For Tippecanoe and Tyler too, Tippecanoe and Tyler too. 
And with them we'll beat little Van ; 

Van, Van is a used up man. 

Then let us cheer that wagon boy, 
Who drove that noble team wo-hoy ! 

Among the songs sung in Ohio was one composed by John 
W. VanCIeve, of Dayton, and published in a campaign paper called 
the Log-Cabin printed in that city, two stanzas of which are given: 

Success to you, Tom Cor win, 

Tom Corwin, our true hearts love you ; 
Ohio has no nobler son. 

In worth there's none above you, 
And she will soon bestow 

On you her highest honor. 
And then our state will proudly show 

Without a stain upon her. 

Success to you, Tom Corwin, 

We've seen with warm emotion 
Your faithfulness to freedom's cause, 

Your boldness, your devotion; » 

And we will ne'er forget 
' That you our rights have guarded; 
Our grateful hearts shall pay the debt, 

And worth shall be rewarded. 

For the methods resorted to in this campaign, so little compli- 
mentary to popular intelligence, the successful candidates should no 
more be held responsible than should Lincoln for the carrying of 
fence rails in the political processions of 1860. Harrison and 
Corwin would doubtless have preferred to be elected by arguments 
addressed to the reason and judgment of the voters rather than by 
appeals to their passions and prejudices. The campaign methods did 
not please all in the Whig ranks. As early as April, 1840, a young 
cadet at West Point, the adopted son of the distinguished Whig 
statesman, Thomas Ewing, wrote: "You are no doubt certain that 
General Harrison will be our next president. I do not think there 
is the least hope of such a change, since his friends have thought 
proper to envelop his name with log cabins, gingerbread, hard cider 
and such humbugging, the sole object of which is plainly to deceive 
and mislead his ignorant and prejudiced but honest fellow citizens, 



CAMPAIGN OF EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY. 37 

whilst his quaHfications, his honesty, his merits and services are 
merely alluded to." The name of this young cadet was William 
Tecumseh Sherman. 

The campaign opened early. The first of the large mass meet- 
ings attended by Corwin was in his own district on the 22nd of May, 
It was a congressional district convention called to nominate a 
candidate to succeed Mr. Corwin in congress and was held at Wil- 
mington, the most central of the county seats of the district. 
Efforts were made to have an immense assembly present and they 
were successful. The Whig papers estimated the number present at 
10,000. Large delegations came from all the counties. The people 
came on foot, on horseback, in wagons, and carried banners, flags 
and coon skins. From some of the wagons were dispensed corn- 
dodgers and hard cider. Log-cabins and immense canoes were a 
prominent feature of the procession. 

Nathaniel McLean, who had been the Jackson candidate for 
congress against Corwin in 1832, was the president of the meeting. 
The main business of the convention was transacted by the people 
from the three counties separating into three meetings and each 
meeting selecting fifty delegates to nominate a candidate for congress. 
These delegates agreed upon the name of Jeremiah Morrow as the 
candidate for the unexpired term of Mr. Corwin and also for the suc- 
ceeding term of two years. Their rejDort was unanimously con- 
firmed in the mass convention. Thomas Corwin, the Whig candi- 
date for governor, was then presented and made what is believed to 
have been his first speech in the campaign, and for the first time 
spoke to one of those immense political meetings which he was so 
frequently afterwards called upon to address. He spoke at consid- 
erable length and succeeded in arousing the listening thousands to a 
high enthusiasm. 

In July Mr. Corwin had a joint discussion at Columbus with 
Thomas L. Hamer, the ablest and most popular speaker of Ohio on 
the Democratic side. The next month he entered upon an extensive 
tour of the state, speaking on August 1st at a large meeting at 
Waynesville, in his own county. This was not only before the time 
of railroads, but when there were but few turnpikes in Ohio, and he 
traveled, often through mud and rain, and spoke in nearly every 
county. It was in this campaign that he became widely known as 
the finest stump speaker in America. While General Harrison, as 
the candidate for president, drew the largest crowds, there was every- 



38 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN, 

where a desire to hear the witty wagon boy, and his meetings, even 
in the newer portions of the state, often numbered thousands. The 
Whigs were greatly encouraged by the results of the elections in 
other states, some of which voted in the spring, some in August and 
some in September. As state after state gave large majorities for 
the Whigs they became more and more confident of victory in Ohio 
and in the nation, and their singers believed the words of their bal- 
lad, "Van, Van, is a used up man." 

But the Democrats did not give up the contest until the votes 
were counted. Mr. Corwin's competitor was Wilson Shannon, a 
lawyer of St. Clairsville, then governor of the state, and a strong 
and popular man, who was subsequently minister to Mexico and 
governor of the territory of Kansas. He made a vigorous canvass 
and was assisted by such popular speakers as Senator William Allen, 
ex-Congressman Hamer and Vice-President Richard M. Johnson, 
who was a candidate for re-election. When the votes were counted 
it was found that Corwin had a majority of over 16,000, nearly 
twice as large as any candidate for governor or president had 
received in the state since the division of the voters into two politi- 
cal parties.* 

The total vote of the state was much larger than had ever be- 
fore been cast at either a state or presidential election. Mr. Cor- 
win's congressional district gave him a majority of over 2,000, and the 
Connecticut Western Reserve nearly 10,000, every one of the eleven 
counties in that extensive region, peopled by emigrants from New 
England, casting a decided Whig majority. Cincinnati, a city of 
50,000 inhabitants, gave a Whig majority of about 1,300, but the 
country townships of Hamilton county were strongly Democratic and 
that county gave Corwin a majority of only 21. 



*Vote for governor, October, 1840: 

Thomas Corwin (Whig) 145-442 

Wilson Shannon (Democrat) 129,312 



Corwin's majority, 16,130 



GOVERNOR AND EX-GOVERNOR— 1840-1844. 



Corwin was inaugurated governor and read his inaugural ad- 
dress to the two houses of the legislature on December 16th, 1840. 
The office to which he had been triumphantly elected was one of 
more honor and dignity than responsibility. The followers of 
Jefferson who had formed the first constitution of Ohio had assigned 
to the chief magistrate few duties. In no state constitution were 
jealousy of executive power and fear of executive patronage more 
strongly marked. The governor did not have the power to veto any 
act of the general assembly and, in matters of legislation, he could 
only make recommendations and give information of the state of the 
government. There was not one important office that could be 
filled by his appointment except in case of a vacancy occurring in 
the recess of the legislature. 

Although Corwin was chief magistrate of Ohio and commander- 
in-chief of its army and militia, almost all that was expected of him 
was to write an annual message, sign the commissions of the state 
and act upon applications for reprieves and pardons. The salary of 
the office was fifteen hundred dollars and the state did not furnish an 
executive mansion. It had been the custom from the organization 
of the state government for the governor to reside at his home and 
to make such visits to the capital as his public duties required. The 
majority of Corwin's predecessors had been farmers who found that 
the duties of the office did not much interfere with their labors of 
planting and harvesting. Not until 1844 did a governor make 
Columbus his residence during his term of office. 

During his term of two years Governor Corwin was much of the 
time at his home in Lebanon and continued the practice of his pro- 
fession. The office did not afford much scope for his talents. He 
is reported to have said that his principal duties were "to appoint 
notaries public and to pardon convicts in the penitentiary." In the 
exercise of his constitutional prerogative of granting reprieves and 

(39) 



40 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

pardons his course was such as to bring upon him the animadversion 
of those who were actuated by a less humane spirit and held less 
philosophical views of punishment. He had opposed when a young 
member of the legislature the degrading punishment of public whip- 
ping, and when chief magistrate he did not approve of the stigma 
of disfranchisement fastened upon those sentenced to the peniten- 
tiary. This disfranchisement under the law at that time rendered 
'them forever incompetent to be electors, jurors or witnesses, or to 
hold any office of honor or profit in the state, unless they received 
from the governor a general pardon under his hand and seal. He 
made it a special inquiry to ascertain the habits and deportment of 
the prisoner during his term of imprisonment, and when there was 
evidence of some reformation and a desire to lead a better life he 
would sign a pardon to take effect a day or two before the expiration 
of his term of service and would thus restore to the released convict 
the rights and privileges of citizenship. This course, which now 
seems eminently wise and laudable, was regarded by some as an 
effort to defeat the ends of justice and was used by his political 
opponents against him when he was a candidate for re-election. 

Governor Corwin's two annual messages to the general assembly 
are proofs of his ability to express hjmself with the pen in a per- 
spicuous style. They are principally but not exclusively devoted to 
state matters, and while the policy of the general government is 
sometimes freely commented upon, it is done courteously. Few of 
the subjects discussed in these two papers, important as they may 
have been to the people of Ohio at the time, would now be read 
with interest. Both messages exhibit a deep interest in the educa- 
tion of the children of the state. The common school system of 
Ohio had been established fifteen years, but had not yet outlived 
opposition. Governor Vance had said that it had been met by 
"the combined force of avarice, wealth and ignorance." The sys- 
tem added much to the rate of taxation. In the interest of retrench- 
ment the legislature had abolished the office of state superintendent 
of common schools and devolved the duties of the office upon the 
secretary of state. Governor Corwin disapproved of this, and 
recommended that the duties of the office be placed upon one whose 
exclusive business it should be to discharge them. He also disap- 
proved of an act which reduced the school funds of the state by an 
amount of fifty thousand dollars as, in appearance at least, a blow 
aimed at the school system, and earnestly recommended that if 



GOVERNOR. 41 

the rates of taxation must be reduced the reduction should be made 
to fall on other subjects, many of which, he said, would readily sug- 
gest themselves to the wisdom of the legislature, as interests which 
could safely be postponed to that of general education. "It is by 
educating poor children," he said, "that we place them to some 
extent at least upon a footing of equality with the fortunate inheri- 
tors of rich estates." 

"During the two years Mr. Corwin was governor," says A. P. Russell, 
*'he was proverbially in the best of humor. All the time he could get from 
public duties was spent at his home in Lebanon. He seemed running over 
with fun and anecdotes, and he never lacked appreciative listeners when he 
wished to talk. Very busy people avoided him as a dangerous temptation. 
Young men especially gathered about him with big eyes of wonder. They 
had no envies or jealousies to prevent them from admiring him. To them 
he discoursed with the utmost freedom. With them, when his mind was full- 
est and freest, he indulged without limit in monologue. He was fond of 
young men; especially those who were inclined to improve themselves and 
who seemed to be promising." 

Genial and amiable as was the governor, the winds of party strife 
blew tempestuously over the state. After their stunning defeat in 
1840 the Democrats of Ohio obtained, the next year, a small major- 
ity in both branches of the general assembly. An extra session of 
the legislature, which met on July 25th, 1842, proved to be the 
stormiest in the history of the state. It was convened for the pur- 
pose of re-districting the state for representatives in congress. The 
passage of a law of congress to apportion representatives among the 
states under the census of 1840 had been delayed so long that the 
regular session of the Ohio legislature was ended before the appor- 
tionment was made. The two parties were almost equally balanced, 
the Democrats having a slight ascendency in each house. In order 
to prevent the majority from re-districting the state in a manner that 
would have given them almost all the members of congress, the 
Whigs adopted the bold and unprecedented course of tendering their 
resignations in a body, thus leaving both houses without a quorum 
of two-thirds. This was long known in the history of Ohio politics 
as "the Whig absquatulation. " 

On the day after the resignations were tendered the speaker of 
the senate issued his warrant to the sergeant-at-arms, commanding 
him to bring into the senate the absent members. That officer 
reported that he had read the warrant to the persons named therein. 



42 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

and that they all refused to obey, declaring they were no longer sen- 
ators, and that he could not compel the attendance of the persons 
named without an application to the governor for aid from the mili- 
tary forces. A similar warrant was issued in the house and a similar 
report made. There being no quorum, the members dispersed with- 
out accomplishing the purpose for which they had met. Indefensi- 
ble and revolutionary as now seems the course of the Whigs at this 
session, their leaders were all renominated and re-elected, and some 
of them were afterwards chosen to high offices in the state and na- 
tion, among whom may be mentioned Benjamin F. Wade, Robert C. 
Schenck and Seabury Ford. It was a year before this that Abraham 
Lincoln, with two other Whigs in the Illinois legislature, jumped out 
of the window to break a quorum, but he afterwards regretted that 
he had entered into this arrangement as he deprecated everything 
which savored of revolution . 

The exciting scenes of the extra session increased party feeling 
throughout the state, and the temporary triumph of the Whig 
minority added bitterness to the campaign in which Governor Cor- 
win was a candidate for re-election. The stormy session terminated 
two months before the state election in October. Corwin's opponent 
was again Wilson Shannon, and the contest was an animated one. 
The Whigs lost the state. Both branches of the legislature became 
strongly Democratic, and William Allen was re-elected United States 
senator by a large majority on joint ballot. Corwin's opponent 
received only a small plurality.* 

At this election, for the first time in Ohio, the radical anti-slav- 
ery men or Abolitionists put forward a candidate for governor. 
This candidate did not receive any votes in some of the counties ; in 
Corwin's own county he had only seven, but in the Western Reserve 
he had a considerable number. As the aggregate vote for the Abo- 
lition candidate exceeded the Democratic plurality and came chiefly 
from strong Whig counties, the impression was general that the 
Abolitionists by putting forward a candidate of their own who had 
no prospect of an election had defeated Mr. Corwin. This impres- 
sion was probably erroneous, for if Corwin had received seven- 

*Vote for governor, October, 1842: 

Wilson Shannon (Democrat) 129,011 

Thomas Corwin (Whig) 125,118 

Leicester King (Liberty) 5)312 

Shannon over Corwin, 3j^93 



GOVERNOR. 43 

eighths of the Abolition vote and his opponent only one-eighth, he 
would still have been defeated. It may also be noted that the 
year 1842 was one of general defeat for the Whigs, the federal house 
of representatives elected that year having a large Democratic major- 
ity. The belief, however, that three-fourths of the Abolition voters 
came from their own ranks caused the Whigs of Ohio to look with 
much ill-will upon the earnest anti-slavery men who favored the 
organization of a new political party. They regarded the Liberty 
party as an aid to the Democrats, and while there were more anti- 
slavery Whigs than anti-slavery Democrats, there was more hatred 
of the Abolitionists among the Whigs than among the Democrats. 

Corwin took his defeat philosophically, and good-humoredly 
attributed it to the Whig voters who staid at home on election day 
to cut their buckwheat. It was his first and only defeat at the polls, 
and it served to increase rather than lessen the esteem and affection 
with which he was held by his party associates. When the next 
Whig state convention was held he was still the leader and the most 
popular man of his party in Ohio. No man was ever more highly 
honored by a state convention than was ex-Governor Corwin at the 
Ohio state Whig convention which met at Columbus in January, 
1844. He was made president of the convention and was tendered 
a unanimous re-nomination and urgently solicited to be a candidate 
for the third time for governor. This he declined in a speech which 
was not reported and preserved, but was pronounced one to be 
remembered a life time by those who heard it. The convention 
then placed his name at the head of the Ohio electoral ticket for 
Clay and Frelinghuysen, next to the nomination for governor, the 
highest honor the convention could bestow. Before the adjournment 
the following highly complimentary resolution was offered by the 
venerable ex-Governor Jeremiah Morrow, who had retired from offic- 
ial life, but was present as a delegate, and it was adopted with vocif- 
erous acclamation by the large assembly : 

^^ Resolved, That in Thomas Corwin we recognize a patriot, a statesman , 
an orator, a man of the people and a champion of their rights, — a man 
whom Ohio is proud to call her own. We esteem him and we love him." 

This resolution and the loud calls of the convention brought 
another response from the orator who for an hour and a half, in the 
language of a published report of the proceedings, enchained his 
audience in breathless attention or called from them shouts of 
applause. 



44 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

In the campaign of 1844 the ex-governor was a conspicuous 
speaker and rendered effective service for the Whig state and 
national tickets. He was now the most famous and popular political 
orator in the country. The announcement of his name was suffi- 
cient to insure a large meeting. He addressed thousands day after 
day. Never was he more eloquent. He pleaded for his cause with 
his whole being. He believed the annexation of Texas would bring 
the greatest perils to the nation. At times he would move a vast 
multitude by the power of his pathos and their eyes would become 
misty ; again, he would arouse them to loud laughter by his wit, but 
none of his hearers would be left in doubt of his entire sincerity. 

In this campaign it was the policy of the Whigs to represent 
Polk as a political nonentity and although he had served fourteen 
years in congress, had been twice speaker and once governor, as a 
man entirely unknown to the nation. The Whig orators studied out 
new methods of contrasting the illustrious Clay with "the renownless 
Polk. At a large meeting at Carthage near Cincinnati, the attend- 
ance was estimated at eight thousand and Corwin was the principal 
speaker. After dwelling upon the abilities and distinguished public 
services of Henry Clay he came to the candidate of the Democrats, 
and asked, "Whom have they nominated? One James K. Polk, of 
Tennessee." Then after a pause and turning his head from one 
side of the audience to the other he added, "After that, who is 
safe?" 

The Whigs lost the presidency, but the electoral vote of Ohio 
was cast for Clay. The Whigs of that state also elected their candi- 
date for governor and secured a decided majority in both branches of 
the general assembly, insuring Corwin's election to the United 
States senate. 

Governor Corwin was called on by the citizens of his town to 
deliver addresses of welcome to two ex-presidents of the United 
States. In 1842 Martin VanBuren made a journey to the western 
states, and it was announced would arrive in Lebanon on the 4th 
day of June. The citizens of the village, although most of them 
were opposed to him politically, determined to receive him with the 
respect due an ex-president. He was met outside of the village 
by a brass band and escorted to his hotel, where a number of per- 
sons were assembled, and Governor Corwin, on behalf of the citi- 
zens of his town, delivered a brief address of welcome. The ex- 



EX-GOVERNOR. 45 

president replied briefly, speaking in so low a tone that his remarks 
were only heard by those nearest him. It is related of one of the 
Whig citizens who disapproved of any public demonstration of honor 
and respect to the lately defeated candidate for president, that he 
continued to work vigorously with his hoe in his garden by the road- 
side as the band and the ex-president passed by, studiously keeping 
his back turned to the road. 

The next year the venerable John Quincy Adams accepted the 
invitation to deliver the address at the laying of the corner-stone of 
the Cincinnati observatory. He made the long journey from his 
home at Quincy by easy stages, and it was announced, would arrive 
in Lebanon on November 7th, 1843. This was learned with much 
satisfaction, and the citizens of the town made extensive preparations 
for the reception of the honored statesman. Mr. Corwin was made 
chairman of the reception committee and selected to deliver the 
address of welcome. Mr. Adams reached Lebanon on the day 
announced for his arrival, and was met a short distance from the 
town by citizens in carriages and on horseback. The public recep- 
tion took place at the Baptist church. Mr. Corwin's address to the 
ex-president was truly beautiful. His remarks have fortunately been 
preserved and are found in the published collection of his speeches. 
Mr. Adams was much touched by the address and the welcome of 
the people. In his response he referred to the flattering manner in 
which he had been received in Ohio from the time he had entered 
the borders of the state at Cleveland a week before. In every city 
and village through which he had passed he had been surrounded 
by the people, and the uniform expression to him had been "Wel- 
come to Ohio." Referring to the address of Mr. Corwin he said 
there ought to be a blush of shame upon his cheek after the unmer- 
ited panegyric bestowed upon him by his eloquent friend. 

"I must confess," continued Mr. Adams, "that my friend's address has 
deeply affected me. To that gentleman's voice in the halls of the national 
legislature in past years I was accustomed ever to listen with pleasure, and 
had been constrained to love and admire him not less for the qualities of his 
heart than for the strength and vigor of his mind; and when he was called 
from his seat in congress to the chief magistracy of this great state, I could 
hardly determine which feeling was most prominent in my bosom, joy at his 
elevation or regret for the loss of his eloquence in debate and wisdom in 
counsel in our national assembly." 



IX THE SENATE 



2nd, 1;^^44. with a Wmg : 

: " - - senatxM- 

. : mteen ; - 

-36ed to tbe sen 

~Tig , Die last 1' - _ Cx»riiriik i*<sS 

-r^T-^ Pt- -— 1 :: his cxiDeagae 

- : _ aiterw3rds Sal- 
ise, ^ected "bv :. : I 7: r 



zh Conrin took tbeir seats for the fir?: r!~r 

were Lewis Cass. J<^m A. Dix, Daniel 

^. _ - -: and Geneial Sam Houston. The 

Ur. : T f»r since piesented a mote brilliant 

talent, and it w :>iit doobt the aUest legislatire 

TTorkL 

-lat events : ; : "t3s whic:i e_Lp£-e i : . 

Mr. Corwin's ^ectirai as ser - emUiz^ of : 

regular sessi<m in December, l^^j. .erand bocii houics 

of coi^ress assumed that the ^ect^. .. -as an appn>\'al by 

Ae people of ti»e annexation of Texas Msrdj 1st. 1S4-5, 

only three days brfore Tyler's letiiem er : ieiH:\-. tbe 

joint resc^udon inccMpocatix^ the repnbl: : Vnited 

States was adc^ted and immediatdy af^r A~ 

Texas was at war with Mexico, the aime:: 

a state of war between the United Sla:. 

the Mexican minister at W^sbir^c^r^r. ct . - - - 

*Vo«e cc 

46: ^ : . 1- 



rS' THE SZyATE. 4 1 

left the countT}-. I: ^^"as oniy a question of time when hostilities 
would begin. The Texans asked President Polk to send an army for 
their protection, and General Zacharj* Taylor was ordered to concen- 
trate an efficient mihtar\- force on the border between Texas and 
Mexico. 

Corwin must have disappointed some of the admirers of his ora- 
ton,- who had assisted in ele\-ating him to the senate if they expected 
him to employ his abihties as a speaker from the beginning of his 
career in that body and to ap|>ear frequently in the debates. As in 
the house, so in the senate, he seldom obtruded his views upon his 
fellow members. He allowed the whole of his first session to pass 
\*-ithout once extending his remarks upon any question to such a 
length as to entitle them to be called a speech. How long a new 
member of a legislative body should be a listener rather than an 
instructor, an apprentice rather than a master, is a question of taste 
which the new member must determine for himseh". ^Ir. Corwin's 
course as a new member of the house and aften^"ards of the senate 
was in marked contrast with that of the great leader of his party, 
Henr\^ Clay, who when a yovmg man made his entrance into congress 
as a senator elected to fiU an unexpired termr and on the fourth day 
after taking his seat offered a resolution concerning the federal cir- 
cuit courts, and after brief interx^als, others on \-arious subjects, one 
of which proposed an amendment to the constitution of the United 
States, and throughout his first session participated freely in the de- 
bates with the oldest and ablest senators. 

It was not until the Mexican war was in progress that Corwin 
took a prominent part in the debates. His first remarks of any con- 
siderable length were made at the second session of his term on a 
proposition to grant a warrant for a half section of land to each sol- 
dier of the war. The proposition met ^ith objections from some 
influential senators. Mr. Corv^-in spoke at length in favor of the 
grant The discussion arose while a bill for the increase of the army 
was before the senate, and was continued from time to time during 
the consideration of that biU, Mr. Corwin speaking on four days. 
The debate was chiefly between Corwin and Benton. The remarks 
of Corwin in favor of land bounties to the soldiers of the Mexican 
war were made in the same session in which he dehvered his great 
speech against the fiirther prosecution of that war. There ^^■as no 
inconsistency in his course, for while he denounced the war as an 
unrighteous one, at no time did he oppose a liberal pajTnent of the 



48 LIFE OP THOMAS CORWIX. 

men who bore arms at the call of the nation's rulers. It should also 
be remembered that his remarks in favor of soldiers' land bounties 
were begun a month before the delivery of his famous Mexican war 
speech. Had they been spoken afterwards he might have been sus- 
pected of a desire to quell the storm of adverse criticism which he 
raised by his bold denunciation of the war. 

His speech on the Mexican war, delivered February 11th, 
1847, was the most important and memorable effort of his life. In 
this speech he maintained that the war was an unjust and dishonor- 
able one ; that it had been declared and commenced not by congress 
but by the president, and that the pretense of the advocates of the 
war that the territory in dispute had belonged to Texas and not to 
Mexico was an egregious, palpable misrepresentation and a bold falsi- 
fication of history ; and he again gave expression to solemn warnings 
of the domestic commotions and national perils which must inevit- 
ably follow territorial aggrandizement. All this had been declared 
again and again by the Whigs and was believed by many Democrats, 
but he went a step further and announced his determination by his 
vote to withhold supplies for the further prosecution of the unholy 
war. This was a bold step. He knew the responsibility he assumed 
and the denunciations which awaited him. He knew, too, that he 
was separating himself from his party associates. In the speech is a 
reference to the number he had found who were supposed to agree 
with him on the question of voting supplies at the bidding of the 
president. "There were not five of us, but only three. And when 
these votes were called and I was compelled to separate myself 
from almost all around me, I could have cried as did the man of Uz 
in his affliction in the elder time, ' What time my friends wax warm 
they vanish, when it is hot they are consumed out of their places.' " 
The "three of us" were Webster, Crittenden and Corwin, who had 
held a conference, and as Corwin understood, had tacitly agreed not 
to vote for appropriations for a war of conquest, but when the roll 
was called Corwin's friends did not support him with their votes. 

The orator was reproached by some of the more timid members 
of his party for taking the right position at a wrong time. But why 
was the speech ill-timed ? It was not made when the army was in a 
stress. Victory after victory had followed the troops of the United 
States. Mexico had been shown to be weak and helpless. The 
speech was made on a bill appropriating three millions, a sum asked 
by the president for the purpose of negotiating a change of the 



IN THE SENATE. 49 

boundaries, the result of which was explained to be territorial ces- 
sions from Mexico. Corwin had voted for supplies for the war from 
the first ; even at the preceding session he had voted for a bill similar 
to the one under consideration. This was before the army had pen- 
etrated far into Mexico and before the purpose of the war had been 
announced by the supporters of the administration to be the acqui- 
sition of territory. He had hoped that with the appropriations asked 
there might be obtained an honorable peace, and the shame and 
crime of a cruel and aggressive war against a weak and defenseless 
nation avoided. 

The philippic against the Mexican war has taken its place among 
the half dozen speeches delivered in congress which stand out singly 
as the most memorable of American orators most distinguished for 
consummate ability and parliamentary eloquence. It is of enduring 
interest ; its theme is a disgraceful war of which the better portion 
of the American people have always been ashamed, one for which 
apologies may be sought, but from which no incentives to patriotism 
can be derived. No speech in the English language contains a greater 
number of passages of lofty eloquence. Its concluding portions 
have often been quoted as among the finest specimens of Ameri- 
can oratory. The speech created a commotion not only in Ohio but 
throughout the nation. No speech delivered in the United States 
senate was ever more widely read, more generally talked about, 
more frequently quoted, more warmly admired, more bitterly de- 
nounced. The author himself afterwards said, with some rhetorical 
exaggeration, that it had caused him to be burned in effigy in every 
village from Maine to Texas that had sent a soldier to fight against 
Mexico. His political opponents seized upon some strong and 
emphatic passages and pronounced them treasonable. The expres- 
sions which became most familiar were " bloody hands " and "hos- 
pitable graves." The exact language of the orator was : " If I were 
a Mexican I would tell you: Have you not room in your own coun- 
try to bury your dead men ? If you come into mine we will greet 
you with bloody hands and welcome you to hospitable graves." 
The denunciations of political opponents were more easily borne 
than the reproaches of the more wary members of his own party, 
who, while approving of his sentiments, condemned him for giving 
them expression. But one of the elements of greatness in the 
speech was the honest and brave assertion of truth regardless of its 
unpopularity. 
5 



50 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

While Corwin was uttering his denunciations of the war for 
territorial extension, Ulysses S. Grant was a soldier in that war. He 
had gone into the battle of Palo Alto a second lieutenant under 
Taylor ; and sixteen months later, after being in all the engagements 
possible for one man, entered the city of Mexico under Scott. 
After he had become the most illustrious general of the civil war 
and had been twice president, he expressed his great regret that it 
had ever been his duty as a soldier and a graduate of West Point to 
fight in the Mexican war, and in his own memoirs deliberately wrote 
that the whole occupation, separation and annexation of Texas were, 
from the inception to the final completion, a conspiracy to acquire 
territory out of which slave states might be formed ; that the south- 
ern rebellion was largely an outgrowth of the Mexican war, and the 
American people got their punishment for their transgressions in the 
most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times. 

The following letter, written by Henry Wilson, afterwards vice- 
president, to Joshua R. Giddings, then a member of congress, shows 
the extraordinary effect produced on the public mind by Corwin's 
great speech. It will be observed that the date of the letter is thir- 
teen days after the delivery of the speech : 

Natick, February 24, 18-47. 
Hon. J. R. Giddings: 

Dear Sir. — I have received your favor of the 12th inst., and am 
much obliged to you for the information communicated. There is a strong 
feeling here in Massachusetts in favor of bold action, and the course of 
yourself and others, especially the Whigs from your state, meets the appro- 
bation of the great mass of our people. We are much pleased with the 
speeches of Hudson and Ashman, but the people are delighted with the 
speech of Corwin. He has touched the popular heart, and the question 
asked in the cars, streets, houses, and everywhere men assemble is : '* Have 
you read Tom Corwin's speech ? " Its boldness and high moral tone meet 
the feeling here, and the people of New England will respond to it, and tens 
of thousands want to hear more from him. Tell him to come out, though, 
in favor of Wilmot proviso. We all hope and expect it of him. We can 
give him every state in New England if he will take the right ground against 
slavery. How I should like to vote for him and some good non-slaveholder 

for vice-president in 1848 I suppose that Webster, Clayton, Mangum 

and Crittenden will be against him, for his speech was a terrible rebuke to 
to them and I am much mistaken if some of them very readily forget or 
forgive him. Their position is a most disgraceful one, and I do not see how 
they are to get out of it. I hope you will use every effort to bring our 

friends right 

Yours truly, 

Henry Wilson, 



IN THE SENATE. 51 

After the delivery of the Mexican war speech large numbers of 
Whig politicians and some newspapers advocated the nomination of 
Corwin for president. Horace Greeley wrote to Giddings that Cor- 
win was his first choice for president and Seward for vice-pres- 
ident. Before the Whig national convention met in Philadelphia, 
Taylor, Clay and Webster became the leading candidates. When 
General Taylor was nominated Clay did not conceal his dissatisfac- 
tion and refused either to speak or write in support of the Whig na- 
tional ticket. Webster declared the nomination one not fit to be 
made and only made a few speeches on the eve of the election. 
Senator Corwin gave a hearty support to Taylor and spoke for the 
Whigs throughout his state in the campaign. He earnestly urged 
his Free Soil friends to vote with the Whigs, but the large vote for 
Van Buren gave the electoral vote of Ohio to Lewis Cass. 

After the conclusion of the war, the question of slavery in the 
large region acquired from Mexico was one of contention in congress 
and seemed to threaten the union of the states. The right of con- 
gress to prohibit slavery in the territories was boldly denied by south- 
ern members. In the senate Mr. Corwin endorsed the principle of 
the Wilmot proviso and argued that congress possessed the power 
and that it was its duty to prohibit slavery in the territories. In 
July, 1848, he debated this question with the senators from South 
Carolina, Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Butler. In the same month he made 
another speech on the same question, in which he discussed at length 
and with profound ability the power of congress over slavery in the 
territories. He declared that the original author of the Wilmot pro- 
viso was Thomas JeiTerson, who had drafted the clause prohibiting 
slavery in the ordinance of 1787. He stated his position in a man- 
ner that could not be misunderstood. 

" I would guard," said Corwin, "against any doubt on this subject. I 
would so act that there should be nothing left undone on my part to prevent 
the admission of slaves, for I am free to declare that if you were to acquire 
the country that lies under the line, the hottest to be found on the globe, 
where the white man is supposed not to be able to work, I would not allow 
you to take slaves there, if slavery did not exist there already. More than 
that, I would abolish it if I could, if it did exist. These are my opinions and 
they have always been the same." 

While Mr. Corwin afterwards favored measures of compromise and 
conciliation between the north and the south, he never receded from 
this position on the question of slavery in the territories. There 



52 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

were violent discussions between the pro-slavery and the anti-slavery 
men in the last days of his service in the senate. The excitement 
spread over the whole country, and there were threats of a dissolu- 
tion of the union. Clay re-appeared in the senate in December, 

1849. He found the feehng for disunion stronger than he ex- 
pected. He believed the stability of the union seriously endan- 
gered, and on January 24th, 1850, unfolded in the senate his "com- 
prehensive scheme of adjustment," known as the compromise of 

1850, the last and perhaps the most important of the measures to 
save the union carried through congress by the great and patriotic 
pacificator. The debate on Clay's "omnibus bill" was extremely 
acrimonious. The Whigs were divided, some supporting, some op- 
posing it. President Taylor and his cabinet were against it. Web- 
ster supported the compromise in his famous 7th of March speech. 
The anti-slavery Seward and Chase united with the extreme pro-slav- 
ery Calhoun and Jefferson Davis in opposing it. Corwin approved 
of the general plan of adjustment in Clay's compromise, but he sup- 
ported Seward's amendment for the renewal of the Wilmot proviso 
by declaring that slavery should never be allowed in either of the 
territories of Utah or New Mexico, and on this amendment he 
voted with Seward, Chase and Hale, and against Clay and Webster. 

During the debate on the question of slavery in California and 
the territories, which grew more and more violent, Vice-President 
Fillmore presided over the senate with dignity and calmness. He 
maintained his impartiality as a presiding officer, and no one knew 
which side of the compromise measure he favored except the presi 
dent, whom he privately informed that if he should be called on to 
give a casting vote it would be in favor of Mr. Clay's bill. In the 
midst of the angry contention President Taylor died, and the new 
cabinet formed by his successor was composed of men who approved 
of the compromise. Mr. Corwin was thus unexpectedly transferred 
from the senate to the cabinet. The governor of Ohio appointed 
Thomas Ewing, who had been a member of Taylor's cabinet, to fill 
the unexpired term in the senate, and the legislature on assembling 
in December elected Benjamin F. Wade, a Free Soil Whig, for the 
succeeding term of six years from the 4th of March, 1851. 



IN THE CABINET. 



President Taylor died July 9th, 1850. He had attended the 
celebration of the fourth of July, and the long exposure to the 
intense heat on the warmest day of the season and his attention to 
what he thought the decorum of his station required cost him his 
Hfe. On the fifth day following he died of a violent fever. On July 
10th, Vice-President Fillmore was inaugurated president by the sim- 
ple official act of taking the oath of office in the presence of the two 
houses of congress and without any inaugural address. All the 
members of the cabinet immediately tendered their resignations, but 
they were requested by the president to retain their places until 
their successors could be appointed. On July 20th the senate re- 
ceived the nominations for the new cabinet. After their confirma- 
tion and the changes made necessary by two declinations, the heads 
of departments of the administration of President Fillmore were as 
follows : 

Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts, secretary of state. 

Thomas Corwin, of Ohio, secretary of the treasury. 

Alexander H. H. Stuart, of Virginia, secretary of the interior, 

Charles M. Conrad, of Louisiana, secretary of war. 

William A. Graham, of North Carolina, secretary of the navy. 

John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, attorney-general. 

Nathan K. Hall, of New York, postmaster-general. 

The date of the appointment of all the members was July 20th, 
1850, except two. James A. Pearce, of Maryland, had first been 
nominated for secretary of the interior ; he declined and T. M. T. 
McKennan was substituted, but he held the office only two weeks, 
being compelled to resign on account of ill health. Finally A. H. 
H. Stuart, of Virginia, was appointed on September 12th. Edward 
Bates, of Missouri, was nominated for secretary of war; he was 
unable to serve, and Charles M. Conrad, a member of the house of 
representatives from Louisiana, was appointed on August 15th. 

(53) 



54 LIFE OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

The compromise of 1850 was of one of the first subjects for 
the consideration of the new administration. Clay's "omnibus bill" 
failed in the senate, but the measures comprised in it were passed as 
separate bills and sent to the president for his approval. Mr. Fill- 
more was known to favor these measures and to have selected a cab- 
inet entertaining the same views. One of the compromise measures 
was the bill providing for more efficient means for the return of 
escaped slaves, known as the fugitive slave law of 1850. The presi- 
dent referred this bill to the attorney-general for his opinion whether 
or not it was in conflict with the constitution in any of its provisions. 
Mr. Crittenden prepared a written opinion sustaining its constitu- 
tionality. The president concurred in this view and signed it 
together with all the other measures of the compromise. 

Congress adjourned September 30th, after one of the longest 
sessions on record. The triumph of Clay in securing the passage of 
his scheme of adjustment was regarded as the crowning glory of his 
long and eventful life. The great mass of the people both north 
and south acquiesced in the compromise. The excitement in the 
country abated ; all fears of a dissolution of the union were dis- 
pelled and the distracting controversy over slavery seemed to be at 
an end. Both the Whig and Democratic parties at their national 
conventions endorsed the compromise measures as the final settle- 
ment of a vexed question. But the fugitive slave law was bitterly 
denounced by the anti-slavery men, and some of its features were 
looked upon as harsh by many who were not strong opponents of 
slavery. The execution of the law was successfully resisted by mobs 
in various places in the north. Slaves were rescued from the cus- 
tody of United States marshals, and state after state enacted laws 
intended to nullify the act of congress. It was the duty of the 
president to execute the law and he issued a proclamation calling 
upon all officers to perform their duty in its execution. Thus Mr. 
Corwin, after a course in the senate which endeared him to the anti- 
slavery men of the nation, was part of an administration first charged 
with the duty under the constitution of enforcing a law by the pro- 
visions of which the whole power of the government of the United 
States was to be employed in rendering fugitive slaves back to bond- 
age, — a law which had much to do in arousing and intensifying 
opposition to slavery throughout the free states and in alienating 
from the Whig party much of its strength. 

On taking charge of the treasury department Mr. Corwin ap- 



IN THE CABINET. 55 

pointed as his private secretary and confidential clerk the poet-editor 
of Ohio, William D. Gallagher, who by his connection as editor with 
various monthly magazines and reviews published at Cincinnati and 
Columbus, had probably done more for the cause of western period- 
ical literature than any other man in his state. For ten years he 
had been one of the editors of the Cincinnati Gazette, and his anti- 
slavery sentiments were too pronounced for some of his associates. 
He retained his position with Mr. Corwin until the close of the ad- 
ministration. W. H. Venable, in his valuable historical and bio- 
graphical work, "Beginnings of Literary Culture in the Ohio Val- 
ley," narrates the following: 

"Soon after his going to Washington and entering upon the discharge of 
his duties in the treasury department, the United States senate called upon 
the secretary for a report upon the merchant marine, internal and coastwise. 
Reliable materials for such a report were not at hand, and Gallagher, having 
the reputation for ability to 'hold his tongue,' was directed to proceed to the 
various interior customs districts of the United States and collect information 
in regard to the revenue, and Edward D. Mansfield was appointed to proceed 
upon similar business to the districts upon the Atlantic seacoast. All the ma- 
terials in, Gallagher drew up the report, which was much commended in the 
department. 

"This over, he was immediately dispatched to the city of New York for 
a million of dollars in gold, out of the sub-treasury, with which he was 
instructed to proceed to New Orleans, by sea, and to deposit with the United 
States treasury in that city. This was to be a secret removal of gold, 
required in the settlement of Mexican claims. The specie was quietly con- 
veyed to the steamship Georgia, of the Rowland and Aspinwall line, and 
placed in a chest under the ladies' cabin before any passengers were received 
on board. Besides Mr. Gallagher, the captain and the purser were the only 
souls on the ship who were aware that it bore golden freight. The voyage 
was in mid-winter; the weather proved stormy. 

"Key West was reached without accident, but within an hour after the 
voyage was resumed from that point the ship struck a rock. By skillful pilot- 
ing, the rock was cleared; and, after a much longer than average trip. New 
Orleans was finally reached on a Sunday morning. As soon as the passen- 
gers were ashore, the gold was loaded in a wagon and hauled to the office of 
the assistant United States treasurer, where Gallagher had it securely placed 
under lock. With the key in his pocket, he went to the St. Charles hotel 
and got breakfast. That over, he proceeded to the telegraph office and sent 
the following dispatch : 'Hon. Thomas Corwin, secretary of the treasury, 
Washington. All right. W. D. Gallagher, New Orleans.' Returning to 
Washington, Gallagher resumed his labors as private secretary. 



56 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

**One day he found among the papers which it was his duty to examine a 
letter signed by some of his old Cincinnati friends, suggesting that an extra 
compensation of not less than $1,000 should be given him as an appropriate 
acknowledgment of his general services to the Whig party and to the gov- 
ernment. He showed the letter to another officer of the department, who 
was pleased with it, saying : 'There is precedent enough for such extra 
compensation for similar services, and it is right — but do you think the secre- 
tary will consent to it?' 'I don't think he will have an opportunity to con- 
sent to it,' Gallagher replied, and threw the letter into the grate and burned 
it up. 'You ought not to have done that, Gallagher,' remarked Mr. H. — , 
'but — ' 'Perhaps not j but no personal friends of mine shall ever be tempted 
by other personal friends to do anything for me like that proposed.' Within 
an hour Mr. Corwin came back to the department from a visit to the presi- 
dent. Mr. H — , goodnaturedly, mentioned the matter to him, whereupon 
he sent, by messenger, a request that Gallagher would step into his room. 
When the latter presented himself, Corwin, with a very solemn expression 
upon his face, said, not angrily, but with sternness in his tone, 'Gallagher, 
are you in the habit, as my private secretary, of destroying such of my private 
letters as you happen not to like?' 'Governor, you have no idea that I 
could do anything of the sort. I destroyed one such letter a while ago, 
which concerned me more than it did you, and which, though meant as an 
act of friendship, ought not to have been written without my knowledge 
and consent. But I suppose you know all about it.' The expression on 

Corwin's face at once relaxed, as he continued, 'I wonder if and 

really supposed I would use the public money in that way. If they did, 
they were most damnably mistaken." 

In 1851 the administration received private information that led, 
first to the suspicion and afterward to the belief, that a Dr. Gardiner 
had presented a fraudulent claim for indemnity for the loss of silver 
mines in Mexico, from which he alleged that he had been driven by 
the Mexican government, and his claim had been sustained by per- 
jury and forgery and allowed, and upon it he had received nearly 
$500,000. While Gardiner was in Europe, he was notified by the 
government of the information in its possession and that the money 
deposited by him in banks had been seized to await a judicial inves- 
tigation. On his return he was arrested and imprisoned, but sub- 
sequently gave bail ; he was tried, was convicted, and committed 
suicide ; and a large portion of the money he had received was re- 
covered. Mr. Corwin, before his appointment to the cabinet, had 
been employed as an attorney in behalf of Gardiner before the com- 
missioners appointed to adjudicate claims against Mexico, and he 
took by assignment an interest in his claim. In the party contests 



IN THE CABINET. 57 

of 1852 there were charges of a corrupt connection of a Whig mem- 
ber of' the cabinet with a gigantic fraud. A virulent attack on the 
secretary of the treasury was made in the house of representatives 
by a Democratic member from Ohio, and a committee of the house 
was appointed to investigate all the facts concerning Mr. Corwin's 
connection with the claim. A majority of the committee were 
Democrats, but they did full justice to a political opponent, and re- 
ported that no testimony had been adduced before them proving or 
tending to prove that Mr. Corwin had any knowledge that the claim 
was fraudulent or that false testimony or forged papers had been or 
were to be procured to sustain it. The testimony showed that he 
had no interest in the claim after he entered the cabinet. Mr. How- 
land, of Texas, a Democratic member of the committee, magnani- 
mously said: "I am free to say that the whole amount of the testi- 
mony shows conclusively that he did not know or believe that the 
claim was fraudulent. " 

As the head of the treasury department, Mr. Corwin favored in 
the main the line of policy which he had long advocated as a Whig 
member of congress. The legislative branch of the government be- 
ing under the control of the party differing in its financial policy 
from that of the executive branch, there was little hope that the recom- 
mendations of the secretary of the treasury would receive favorable 
consideration in congress. It was not the desire of Mr. Corwin to 
make sudden or radical changes in the tariff lav/ of 1846 then in 
operation, or to return to a system of high protective duties. In 
his first annual report to congress, presented December 17th, 1850, 
he said : 

"The primary object to be kept in view in levying duties upon imports, 
is admitted to be revenue. It is equally well established, as the policy and 
duty of the government, so to discriminate in the levying of duties as, with- 
out falling below the necessary amount of revenue, to give the greatest 
encouragement possible to all the industrial pursuits of our people. One 
feature of the law of 1846, in the opinion of this department, is opposed to 
both the controlling principles just stated. I have reference to an equal 
or higher rate of duty on the raw material than upon the manufactured arti- 
cle which is composed of it. Such provisions certainly take from the manu- 
facturer and artisan that encouragement which the present law doubtless, to 
some extent, was intended to afford, and also check the importation of the 
raw material to a degree detrimental to the revenue." 

In the last e\(A\t months of President Fillmore's term of service 



58 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

there were three changes in the cabinet, but none of them were on 
account of dissensions or any differences in opinion. WilHam A. 
Graham, having been nominated as the Whig candidate for vice-pres- 
ident, resigned and was succeeded as secretary of the navy by John 
P. Kennedy, of Maryland; Nathan K. Hall, who had studied law 
with the president and had been his law partner at Buffalo, was 
appointed United States judge for the northern district of New York, 
and his place as postmaster-general was taken by Samuel D. Hub- 
bard, of Connecticut ; and on the death of Daniel Webster, October 
24th, 1852, Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, became secretary of 
state. 

Mr. Corwin remained in the cabinet until the close of the ad- 
ministration. It was the last administration of the Whigs. Never 
again did that party obtain control of any branch of the federal gov- 
ernment. It was an able, patriotic and successful administration. It 
left the country in peace and prosperity and, excepting the troubles 
growing out of the fugitive slave law, free from sectional bitterness. 
The cabinet was composed of able men, devoted to the union, and 
possessing in an eminent degree the confidence of the nation. It 
was a harmonious cabinet and it is recorded that never once in any 
of its meetings was heard a note of angry dissension ; and all its mem- 
bers on retiring from office united in a letter to the president ex- 
pressing their confidence in his abilities, integrity and devotion to 
the public service. 



RETURN TO CONGRESS. 



On retiring from the treasury department in 1853, Mr. Corwin 
was a private citizen after an almost uninterrupted public service of 
a quarter of a century. He had continued the practice of law while 
in public life until he became a member of the cabinet. He now 
returned to his village home to enjoy a respite from the cares of 
official station and the labors of his profession. Not long after his 
return to his home he was induced to accept the presidency of a 
company organized to construct one of the numerous railroads pro- 
jected in Ohio at this period. He cannot be said to have become a 
railroad president, as the company of which he was the head did not 
succeed in completing its contemplated work. The business of this 
company required him to spend a portion of his time in Cin- 
cinnati. 

An unfortunate investment in the securities of another western 
railroad enterprise resulted in the almost complete impoverishment 
of himself and his family and compelled him to return to the active 
practice of his profession. He formed a partnership for the practice 
of law with John Probasco, an able lawyer of Lebanon, who had 
recently retired from the bench. The office of the firm was at Cin- 
cinnati, but both members retained their residence at Lebanon. This 
partnership was soon terminated by the death of Judge Probasco, 
which occurred in 1857, before he had completed his forty-fourth 
year. Mr. Corwin then entered into a partnership with his young 
son-in-law, George R. Sage. 

Though a private citizen, Mr. Corwin could not be an uncon- 
cerned observer of political events. If he had any desire to re-en- 
ter public life there was little hope of official station either in his 
state or in the nation for one who adhered so firmly to the old Whig 
principles as did he. While he was in the cabinet his party had met 
with the most disastrous of its many defeats in presidential elec- 
tions, and at the first state election after his return to his home the 

(59) 



60 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

Democrats of Ohio cast 61,000 more votes for governor than the 
Whis7s. and the Free Soil vote was now well up to that of the 
Whio-s. Mr. Corwin was probably slow in yielding assent to the 
truth which became more and more evident that the political party 
which had so highly honored him and of which he had been so 
bright an ornament, and which when a middle-aged man he had as- 
sisted in organizing, was now to be buried before he was yet an old 
man. The Free Soilers rejoiced in its demise, and their orators in 
Ohio told the old line Whigs that their party was not only dead 
"but by this time it stinketh." 

When the young and vigorous Republican party sprang into 
existence it cordially invited the affiliation and co-operation of the 
men of all parties, however differing in other respects, in carrying 
out its one great purpose of resisting the aggressions of the slave 
power. Some who had never been known as anti-slavery men or 
even as opponents of the extension of slavery, seeing that the new 
party would certainly control the free states, became its adherents and 
were rewarded with office. Mr. Corwin's record in congress in op- 
position to the spread of slavery and his bold denunciation of a war 
inaugurated by the slave power, combined with his fame as a politi- 
cal orator and his personal popularity, would have caused his acces- 
sion to its ranks to be hailed with joy. But he could not give up 
the principles he had so long advocated. His party was dead, but 
he was still a Whig. In the campaign of 1856 he was placed in the 
unhappy position of not being in accord with the majority of those 
who had been his warmest friends and supporters. The great mass 
of the Whigs of Ohio were the supporters of Fremont. Mr. Cor- 
win had a high regard for Fillmore and desired his election, but it 
was evident that the electoral vote of Ohio and of the free states gener- 
ally would be cast either for Fremont or Buchanan. On the eve of 
the election he made a single speech from the steps of the Burnet 
House, advising his friends in Ohio to vote for Fremont and south of 
the Ohio river for Fillmore as the most effective course to prevent 
the success of the party which had repealed the Missouri compro- 
mise and enacted the Kansas-Nebraska bill. 

Mr. Corwin had no sympathy with that spirit of aggressive op- 
position to slavery which soon after made a hero of John Brown and 
was ready, in resisting the fugitive slave law, to bring his own state 
into armed conflict with the national authorities. He was devoted 
to the union, and he earnestly urged a faithful observance of all the 



RETURN TO CONGRESS. 61 

requirements and compromises of the constitution of the United 
States. The duty of maintaining the supremacy of the law became 
a frequent topic of his serious conversation. This was becoming an 
unpopular doctrine, and was heard with impatience by the believers 
in "a law higher than the constitution." Mr. Corwin continued to 
urge his views on all proper occasions without regard to their popu- 
larity, and exhibited much the same boldness in adhering to his con- 
victions of right that he manifested in his Mexican war speech. 

In 1858 Mr. Corwin's friends urged that he return to public life, 
and he expressed a willingness to serve again in congress if the peo- 
ple in his district desired it. The district consisted of the counties 
of Warren, Clinton, Greene, Fayette and Madison, all of which 
were Republican, and a nomination as the Republican candidate 
insured an election. Mr. Corwin had no claims to the nomination 
on account of party services, and as there were other aspirants in 
the district for a seat in congress, it was by no means certain that 
he could be nominated. He permitted his name to go before the 
Republican convention of the district as a candidate for the nomina- 
tion, and before it assembled delivered an address in which he made 
a full and frank statement of his views on the political questions at 
issue. He spoke in a grove at Morrow in his own county; his 
speech was reported and printed in the Cincinnati daily papers. 

As his views were not on all points in unison with those of the 
Republican leaders, his nomination was opposed by some influential 
men of his district. Wm. H. P. Denny, the veteran editor of the 
Western Star of Lebanon, who had for a score of years been a warm 
supporter of Corwin, now opposed him, and in printing his speech 
put in italics the passages which were supposed to be in conflict 
with good Republican doctrine. The name of Tom Corwin and the 
admiration and affection of the people for him gave him the nomina- 
tion, and he was of course triumphantly elected. It was thus his 
happy lot to be chosen to the last congress in which he sat not 
strictly as a party man, and he entered upon his important trust at a 
time of national perils untrammeled by party allegiance. His re-ap- 
pearance ki public life was hailed with joy by large numbers in va- 
rious parts of the union, and it was hoped that his conservative 
views, his ripe judgment and large political experience would make 
him useful in allaying party viiHilence and sectional animosity. 

On the question of prohibiting slavery in all the territories of 
the United States Mr. Corwin was in perfect accord with the plat- 



^2 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

forms of the Republican party, but he could not endorse the position 
taken by some leaders of that party that in no event should a new 
state be admitted into the union with a constitution permitting slav- 
ery. In a speech at Byron, Greene county, he was reported to 
have said: 

"The right of congress to make all needful regulations for the territo- 
ries he considered indisputable, and he would attach some such rule as the 
Wilmot proviso to every territory on its organization. He knew the advan- 
tages of it in the results of the ordinance of ' 87. Congress bore the same 
relation to the territories as a guardian did to his ward. As a member of 
congress, he would act as a faithful guardian, bring up the territories in the 
way they should go, and counsel them never to depart from it. But when a 
territory was emerging into a state, it was becoming of age. He could do no 
more than point out the benefits of its early training, and if it chose to devi- 
ate from his teaching, he could only regret it. It was then, as the minor be- 
come of age, its own master. Congress having passed an enabling act, per- 
mitting it to make a constitution and set up for itself, could not, he thought, 
consistently refuse it admission into the union on account of a clause in its 
constitution, when we had in the union fifteen states with similar constitu- 
tions. If we had no power to turn out states on that account, we should not 
keep them out. Here he read from the remarks of John Quincy Adams — 
good authority with the most ultra anti-slavery men — on the admission of 
Arkansas, showing that in this view he only re-affirmed what that eminently 
wise statesman uttered." 

After his nomination Mr. Corwin took part in the canvass and 
thousands gathered to hear him again in the discussion of political 
questions and listened eagerly to the manly and independent expres- 
sion of his opinions. More than a year elapsed after his election 
before the congress to which he had been chosen assembled, and in 
this time he continued to mingle freely in the discussion of current 
public questions and participate in political meetings. He was a 
delegate to the Republican state convention of 1859 which nominated 
William Dennison for governor and accompanied that gentleman 
through a portion of the state in the canvass which terminated in his 
election. In some of his addresses at the hustings the distinguished 
orator would rise to sublime heights of eloquence and ntanitest an 
earnestness and energy that produced a lasting impression upon the 
minds of his hearers. He continued to urge upon the people of all 
parties and creeds the sacred duty of maintaining the supremacy of 
the constitution and abiding by the laws of the land ; and discounte- 
nanced any mode of redressing grievances other than that which can 



RETURN TO CONGRESS. 63 

be peacefully and legally applied by the exercise of constitutional pow- 
ers. The sincerity of his motives no one could question. The tone 
of his speeches throughout this period of his life was less calculated 
to make his hearers strong partisans than patriotic and conscientious 
voters. 

The newspaper reports of Corwin's addresses in political cam- 
paigns show one characteristic common to all of them. Sometimes 
it was in the beginning ; sometimes at the close ; but he never failed 
to exhort his hearers to a conscientious and unfailing exercise of the 
right to vote, and to admonish the people that in this country they 
had the right and the power to make and unmake their rulers. Some- 
times he would speak with scorn of those who felt themselves too 
respectable and decent to interest themselves in elections ; sometimes 
he would utter a solemn warning that a neglect or disregard of the 
right of suffrage would end in its loss. In concluding a speech at 
Dayton, Ohio, September 30th, 1858, he spoke with great effect on 
this topic. The Dayton Journal thus reported this portion of his 
speech : 

" The close of Governor Corwin's speech was one of the most thrilling 
eloquence and power. He appealed to the people to exercise the reason and 
conscience which God had given them to decide how to vote. The power 
conferred upon the voters of this nation was a tremendous power. It was 
one, for the faithful exercise of which or the failure to exercise which, they 
would as he believed be called to answer at the great day. It was a power 
all potent for good or evil ; and as the Almighty, in His providence, had 
given men brains to think and consciences to tell them the right from the 
wrong, they could not hope to escape a fearful reckoning for negligence or 
unfaithfulness. 

" He said that as he had traveled through the country, and beheld the 
church-spires and school-houses, it seemed to him incomprehensible how, 
with the advantages of education and of instruction from the pulpit, there 
could be a generation of men who would disregard the lessons of experience 
and the teachings of history so much as to fail in the giving of an intelligent 
and patriotic vote. 

" Governor Corwin proceeded, with a glowing eloquence of words and 
a sublimity of thought, to draw from sacred history the most pointed exem- 
plifications of the duty made imperative by the divine command, to give 
heed to the things which make for the peace and honor and glory of our 
common country. The hand ot the Almighty was as plainly to be seen in 
the interposition in our behalf during the revolutionary struggle, as it was in 
the rolling of the waves of the Red Sea over the hosts of Pharaoh as they 



64 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIX. 

were pursuing the Israelites. We could not hope to escape the fate of the 
' chosen people,' in whose history were so terribly fulfilled the words of proph- 
ecy, unless we appreciated our blessings, and struggled to preserve our birth- 
right; and yet the history of man seemed to be the same in all ages. Three 
thousand years ago, when the Almighty, by a miraculous exercise of His 
power, had brought the children of Israel out of their Egyptian captivity, we 
found them, when it might have been supposed that the wonder of the mira- 
cle was still impressing them with its awful grandeur, worshiping the golden 
calf! 

" The prophet, Isaiah, in denouncing the sins and the punishment of 
Judah, had said : ' The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib ; 
but Israel doth not know — my people doth not consider.' The people did 
not ' consider ' — they did not think. Every man should break away from the 
trammels of party — he should think — think for himself — and so discharge his 
duty, as if knowing that upon him alone rested the responsibility of faithfully 
and honestly acting for the welfare of the twenty-six millions of this nation — 
as if he were the only man who had a vote — as if he were possessed of des- 
potic power, and his will was the law." 

Mr. Corwin took his seat as a representative in the thirty-sixth 
congress in December, 1859. A majority of the representatives 
had been elected as opponents of the Buchanan administration but 
no party had a clear majority and the house was unorganized for two 
months. The contest for the speakership was a memorable one. 
The minds of the southern members were inflamed by the John 
Brown raid. John Sherman was the Republican candidate for 
speaker and he was nominated for that position by Mr. Corwin. 
Mr. Sherman and a large number of Republican members of the 
last congress had signed a circular commending to the attention of 
the public a book entitled "Helper's Impending Crisis," containing 
strong anti-slavery sentiments. Week after week was spent in 
heated debates on slavery, John Brown and Helper's book, with oc- 
casional ballots for speaker. In the seventh week of the contest 
Mr. Corwin made the longest of his reported speeches. There was 
a tone of sadness in his rambling remarks ; he felt, he said, as if he 
were not in the congress of the United States and he wished it were 
possible for the journal clerk to blot out their proceedings from the 
beginning of the session that they might be known no more among 
men. Yet he used his best efforts to amuse the members and to put 
all sides in a good humor, in order to effect an organization ; and 
after speaking two days, when he proposed to stop there were calls 
to go on. He referred to his own reported declaration that "he 



RETURN TO CONGRESS. 65 

would vote for Mr. Sherman till the last trump would sound," and 
said: "A better man than I am changed his mind. David, King 
of Israel, repented of what he said when he remarked : ' I said in 
my haste that all men are liars,' I concede that fact when I state 
now that I am willing to vote for almost anyone who can be elected." 

When the house was finally organized on February 1st, 1860, 
by the election of ex-Governor William Pennington, of New Jersey, 
as speaker, Mr. Corwin was appointed chairman of the committee 
on foreign affairs. A second extended speech made by him at this 
session was delivered at the time of the Democratic national conven- 
tion at Charleston, when the house met for debate only, many mem- 
bers being absent. In these debates the political situation was the 
general topic under consideration, and in the colloquies which natu- 
rally ensued, Mr. Corwin was drawn into controversy with many 
members, and, with frequent interruptions, occupied the floor on 
two days. His extended remarks were never revised for publication. 

He was a delegate to the national Republican convention at 
Chicago in 1860, and in the ensuing campaign he supported Lincoln 
for president. He was re-nominated and re-elected to congress the 
same year. When the second session of the thirty-sixth congress 
assembled Lincoln had been chosen president, but was not yet inau- 
gurated. The actual work of secession soon began. The sentiment 
of disunion spread with alarming rapidity throughout the cotton- 
growing states, and nearly all the senators and representatives from 
those states resigned their seats and favored a southern confederacy. 
Mr. Corwin was appointed by the speaker chairman of a grand com- 
mittee of one from each state on the disturbed condition of the 
country. No man could with more propriety h^ve been placed at 
the head of a committee charged with the consideration of such 
grave questions when the times were full of passion and bitterness. 
His conservative views gave him influence with such members from 
the south as were still attached to the union, while the most radical 
members from the north, however much they differed with him, 
could not but respect the sincere and patriotic motives which actu- 
ated him. 

The celebrated "committee of thirty-three," of which Mr. Cor- 
win was chairman, after long consideration agreed upon a report 
which embodied measures of conciliation intended to remove from 
the minds of the southern people any just fears that their rights 
under the constitution should not be fully protected. Mr. Corwin 
6 



66 LIFE OP THOMAS CORWIN, 

spoke in support of the recommendations of the committee on Jan- 
uary 21st, 1861. There was an angry debate upon the report run- 
ning through several days. The first series of resolutions reported 
by the committee was adopted by a vote of 136 ayes to 53 noes. 
The most important part of the report was a proposed amendment 
to the constitution which would forever make it impossible for con- 
gress to interfere with slavery in any of the states. This first failed 
in the house to receive the requisite two-thirds vote, but there was a 
subsequent re-consideration and the resolution was adopted by a vote 
of — ayes, 133; noes, 65. In the senate the proposition received 
precisely the required two-thirds, the vote being 24 to 12, The pro- 
posed amendment thus submitted to the states was in these words : 

''Article XIII. ( No amendment shall be made to the constitution 
which will authorize or give to congress the power to abolish or interfere, 
within any state, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of per- 
sons held to labor or service by the laws thereof."/ 

A large number of strong anti-slavery men, both in the Republi- 
can and Democratic parties, some of them afterward illustrious for their 
services to the country, aided Mr. Corwin in carrying the resolution 
submitting this amendment through the two houses of congress. 
Before many states could act upon it, the evidences of the fixed 
determination of the slave states to secede had so increased that all 
efforts at conciliation were seen to be vain. Ohio and Maryland 
ratified the amendment. Had it been made a part of the constitu- 
tion at that time, it would not have averted the greatest war of mod- 
ern times, but it is not to be regretted that the name of Corwin is 
conspicuous in this, last effort to save the union without civil war. 



MINISTER TO MEXICO. 



On March 12th, 1861, President Lincoln sent to the senate the 
nomination of Thomas Corwin as minister to Mexico, and the nomi- 
nation was promptly confirmed. This mission was at this time one 
of the most important under our government. One month before 
the appointment of Corwin, the government of the Confederate 
States of America had been established and the boundary which 
had been the cause of the war between the United States and Mex- 
ico was the boundary of the new confederacy. It was the earnest 
desire of the administration of Lincoln that in the difficulties grow- 
ing out of the rebellion friendly relations between the United States 
and Mexico should be continued, and that no encouragement to the 
seceding states to hold out in their rebellion should come from the 
Mexican government. The slave power which had instigated the 
rebellion had brought about the war against Mexico for the acquisi- 
tion of territory out of which to form new slave states. The ap- 
pointment by Lincoln to the Mexican mission of the statesman who 
had in the senate opposed the dismemberment of that republic was 
a felicitous one. 

Mr. Corwin's instructions from Secretary Seward were dated on 
the 6th of April, and about the middle of that month, for the first 
time, he left his country in the service of his government. The 
diplomatic representative of Mexico at Washington requested the 
governor of Vera Cruz to provide for him an escort to the Mexican 
capital on account of banditti infesting a portion of the road, and as 
a compliment to the representative of the United States government. 
Mr. Corwin found no disposition on the part of the Mexican authori- 
ties to promote internal dissensions in the United States or to extend 
sympathy and aid to the Confederate States. On the 29th of May, 
1861, he wrote to his own government: 

" The present government of Mexico is well disposed toward us in our 
present diflfiiculties, but for obvious reasons will be unwilling to enter into any 

(67) 



68 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

engagement which might produce war with the south unless protected by z 
promise of aid from the United States." 

Mexico was soon in a condition calling for the sympathy of her 
sister republic. Spain, England and France united in pressing 
against her claims for losses to their subjects resident within her bor- 
ders. The allied powers occupied Vera Cruz in December, 1861, 
England and Spain soon withdrew their troops, as their claims were 
settled by negotiation, but the war was continued by Louis Napoleon 
who desired to establish a monarchy on the ruins of the Mexican 
republic. Mr. Corwin soon negotiated a treaty which, among other 
stipulations, proposed a loan from the United States to Mexico, by 
which it was hoped she would be enabled to resist the interference 
of France. This treaty failed of ratification in the United States 
senate. 

During most of the time Mr. Corwin was in Mexico, his posi- 
tion was one of difficulty and delicacy ; the country he represented 
was in the throes of a great civil war, the one to which he was ac- 
credited invaded by the armies of one of the great powers of 
Europe; but his eminence for talents, experience in public affairs, 
the democratic simplicity of his manners and the kindly interest he 
took in the welfare of the Mexican people, combined with the fact 
that he was the representative of the greatest of republics at a repub- 
lican court, gave him much influence with President Juarez and the 
embassies from other nations. 

Presuming, perhaps, too largely upon his urbanity, the Prussian 
minister, Baron De Wagner, having obtained temporary leave of 
absence, addressed him a request, stating that during his absence he 
trusted the Prussian, Spanish and Belgian consular authorities would 
be able to afford due protection to their respective countrymen, yet 
he took the liberty of recommending them, in case of need, to the 
kind and more effective protection of the United States legation, 
confident as he was that Mr. Corwin would be pleased to grant them 
as well as the French residents who might appeal to him such aid as 
might be possible under such critical circumstances. To this request 
Mr. Corwin replied : 

" Were such request addressed to the cabinet at Washington and its' 
object approved, and proper instructions given to the undersigned, he should 
then, and only then, deem it proper for him, in obedience to such instruc- 
tions, to discharge to the best of his ability the duties they might impose. 
The undersigned has not at this time and place the means of searching for 



MINISTER TO MEXICO. 69 

precedents, but his memory furnishes him with no instance where a minister 
of the United States, under circumstances Hke the present, assumed to ex- 
tend diplomatic protection to foreign citizens resident within the territories of 
the government to which he is accredited, without express instructions to do 
so from the president of the United States. In regard to the proposed pro- 
tection of the subjects of his imperial majesty, the emperor of the French, 
there are reasons for the course the undersigned has adopted, which might 
not apply with equal force to the other nationalities specified in your excel- 
lency's note. The French empire and Mexico are at war. Between these 
two belligerent powers the government of the United States occupies a purely 
neutral position. Should the government of the United States assume the 
right and duty of protecting the subjects of one of the belligerent powers 
against the supposed wrongs to be inflicted upon them by the government of 
the other, it is easy to foresee that cases might arise which would tend 
strongly to disturb these peaceful relations with one or both of the belliger- 
ents, which it is the object of perfect neutrality to preserve inviolate." 

After this declination to comply with his proposition the Prus- 
sian minister requested Mr. Corwin to inform the representatives 
of other American republics then at the Mexican capital of the 
"very pressing instances" he made to the diplomatic corps, and each 
of its members in particular, to lend their assistance in favoring pro- 
tection to foreigners who might address them directly, or Mr. Cor- 
win "as their dean;" with which request Mr. Corwin complied by 
forwarding to each of the representatives referred to, a copy of 
Baron De Wagner's note, and inviting them to meet the members of 
the diplomatic corps, then in that city, at his rooms to take into con- 
sideration Mr. Wagner's request. Sometime afterward, in reply 
to a note received from Senor A. de la Fuenta, dated National Pal- 
ace, Mexico, February 24, 1863, Mr. Corwin wrote: 

" I declined the protection of those subjects, when proposed to be 
clothed with that power by Mr. Wagner, not, however, because I conceived 
my assumption of such powers could give any just cause of complaint to the 
supreme government of Mexico, but on the ground that in the present rela- 
tions of Mexico with European powers, and also with the government of the 
United States, I deemed it proper that the subject should be first submitted 
to the cabinet at Washington, and its instructions thereupon forwarded to 

me I deem it due to that candor which should characterize the 

intercourse between the republics of Mexico and the United States to state 
to your excellency the course I deem it my duty to pursue on this subject 
until specific instructions shall be received by me from my government. 

" If the action of the supreme government of Mexico should at any 



70 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

time DC exerted upon any foreign subject or citizen to such an extent as to 
place his life, liberty or property in danger, and where such action would, 
with equal propriety, be applied, under like circumstances, to an American 
citizen, I shall, if any such case unhappily arises, deem it my duty to offer to 
the supreme government such expostulation as in my judgment the case may 
seem to require. This I shall do with the most perfect respect for the just 
powers of the supreme government of Mexico, and with a well-founded con- 
fidence in its upright motives, and its desire to do justice to all foreigners with 
such moderation as may consist with self-respect and the dignity and safety of 
the Mexican republic. In adopting this course, I am sure your excellency 
will perceive that I am making no innovation upon the modern usage of civ- 
ilized nations, nor doing anything which should interrupt the friendly relations 
which my government so earnestly desires with the Mexican republic." 

The approbation by his government of the rule of action he 
had adopted, is thus expressed in a note addressed to him by the 
secretary of state, Mr. Seward, April 18th, 1863: 

"Your proceedings with relation to the request of the late Prussian 
minister at Mexico, that you would assume the protection of subjects of the 
king of Prussia and of other European powers in that republic, during the 
suspension of the several European legations there, are approved by the pres- 
ident. The first responsibility of a minister is to practice fidelity to the inter- 
ests of the state whose credentials he bears; the second is the exercise of 
perfect good faith, respect and courtesy to the government of the country to 
which he is accredited. A minister is not only at liberty, but he is morally 
bound to render all the good offices he can to other powers and their subjects 
consistently with the discharge of those principal responsibilities I have 
described. But it belongs to the state where the minister resides to decide, 
in every case, in what manner and in what degree such good offices shall be 
rendered, and, indeed, whether they shall be tolerated at all. No abridg- 
ment of this sovereign right can be insisted upon, unless, indeed, the govern- 
ment of that state manifestly refuses to acknowledge or give effect to some of 
the entirely admitted principles of morality recognized as constituting the basis 
of the laws of nature and the law of nations. Not only has this government 
no such complaint to make against Mexico, but, on the contrary, in all its 
intercourse with that republic it has been impressed with the evidences of a 
high degree of virtue and enlightenment. That government deservedly 
enjoys not only the respect but the good wishes, and, so far as natural affec- 
tions are allowable, the sympathy of the United States in its present unhappy 
embarrassments with foreign powers. The president therefore remits you for 
your government in regard to the questions presented, to the rules you have 
prescribed to yourself, so long as they shall be satisfactory to the government 
of Mexico." 



MINISTER TO MEXICO. 71 

In a dispatch dated June 26th, 1863, Mr. Corwin informed his 
government that the French army had entered and occupied the 
Mexican capital, and the government to which he had been accred- 
ited had been compelled to retire to San Luis Potosi, and that he 
had been invited by Juarez to leave Mexico and repair to that place, 
but as the country was divided between two hostile governments he 
had determined to decline leaving the ancient capital. Mr. Seward 
informed Mr. Corwin that his course was approved by the president, 
and that the most convenient and favorable position of the Ameri- 
can legation for the protection of American interests must depend 
upon the contingencies of the war. He was informed, however, 
that he was not expected under the existing circumstances to address 
the new government at the capital. 

The condition of the Mexican republic made Mr. Corwin's posi- 
tion an irksome and unhappy one. He longed to be at home in his 
own country, and as the capital to which he had been sent as a min- 
ister of the United States was now under the control of a new and 
provisional government with which he could have no communication, 
he applied to the president for a leave of absence in order to visit 
his home. In a letter to Mr. Corwin, dated August 8th, 1863, Mr. 
Seward wrote : 

* ' The president fully appreciates the great and unwearied labors you 
have performed in your mission, and the circumstances which render a tem- 
porary relief from them desirable on your part. He has thought that proba- 
bly the present juncture, when things in regard to the future of Mexico are 
depending on dispositions and events there, with which a minister of a for- 
eign and friendly power cannot lawfully interfere, may, perhaps, be the most 
suitable one for the allowance of the indulgence you have asked. But he 
desires to leave this point to your own better-informed discretion. You will, 
therefore, have leave of absence, to begin at such time as you may think 
proper after this communication reaches you, and may return to the United 
States to confer with this department, and to await the further directions of 
the president." 

Mr. Corwin returned to the United States early in the year 
1864 and not long after resigned his position as minister. His son, 
William Henry Corwin, remained in Mexico charge d'affaires until 
1866. 



THE LAST OF EARTH, 



The return of Corwin to the United States and his resignation 
soon after of the office of minister to Mexico closed his pubHc Hfe. 
and his earthly career terminated suddenly in the following year. 
Though he held no official station his last days were not passed in 
retirement. He was still under the necessity of work and he opened 
a law-office in Washington. No city in the United States offered the 
lawyer of ability a more lucrative practice than did the national capi- 
tal at the close of the civil war, and Mr. Corwin's fame and abilities 
would doubtless have made the last years of his professional career 
eminently successful had he not been suddenly cut down before age 
had impaired his vigorous and brilliant powers. He was stricken 
with paralysis and died at Washington, December 18th, 1865. 

He had been invited to a large party of Ohio people at the res- 
idence of the Ohio military agent. The assemblage was a notable 
one, embracing several persons of national distinction and two young 
members of the Ohio delegation in congress who were afterwards 
elected to the presidency. The rooms were crowded and Corwin 
was late in entering. When he came in there was heard the excla- 
mation of joy, ''There is Tom Corwin," and soon men gathered 
around him to hear him talk. The chairs had been removed and the 
company was compelled to stand. Corwin had not been well and 
General Hayes, knowing this, had taken possession of the only seat 
in the room to reserve it for him. When he was offered the seat he 
declined it, as there were older men present, but Hayes, getting in 
front of him, gently forced him into it. Soon he began to talk and 
a company gathered around him in a compact mass. Some got 
down on their knees near him in order to let others see over their 
heads ; others stood and peered over the shoulders of those in front 
of them. The wonderful talker seemed to be in his happiest vein. 
When the company was invited to the refreshment room, Corwin 
was seated on a sofa. As many as could hear him continued to 
listen and to laugh and sometimes to shout in boisterous merriment. 

(72) 



THE LAST OF EARTH. 73 

But the great humorist arose from his seat, stretched forth both 
hands as if to illustrate a point in an anecdote, gasped and fell for- 
ward. Garfield caught him in his arms and he was carried into an 
adjoining room. His whole right side was paralyzed. He spoke 
once or twice, but soon became unconscious and thus lingered for 
two days, when he breathed his last. 

The accounts of the last conscious moments of Corwin, as given 
by those present, differ somewhat in some of the details. Ex-Presi- 
dent Hayes, a short time before his death, gave a nev/spaper corres- 
pondent his recollection of the thrilling scene: "When Corwin was 
in the midst of his jesting, Wade, who had been listening intently, 
suddenly asked: ' They say, Corwin, those Mexicans want to be an- 
nexed to the United States ; what do you think of that ?' Corwin's 
face changed from gay to grave, his eyes became serious, and every- 
one bent forward to hear what he might say. He raised his hand 
and attempted to speak. His lips moved, but no words came. His 
hand still moved in gesture. Then it was seen that something was 
the matter and we moved back to give him air. He raised himself 
suddenly from his seat, reached forward his hands and fell into the 
arms of his friends. We carried him into the next room and laid him 
upon a bed, and he never spoke again." General Garfield in 1878, 
by request, wrote his recollection: "A large party of Ohio people 
had assembled at the house of Mr. Wetmore, the military agent of 
Ohio, and Corwin was in his happiest vein of anecdote. He occu- 
pied a sofa, with a friend seated on each hand and as many seated in 
front of him as could get within reach. They were listening to one 
of his inimitable stories, in the course of which he arose to illustrate 
some point of the anecdote, and while making a gesture with both 
hands was stricken with paralysis and fell forward. I caught him in 
my arms, and Whitelaw Reid, who stood beside me, aided in carry- 
ing him to a bed in an adjoining room. He spoke once or twice on 
the way and as we laid him down, but never spoke again." 

The sudden death of Corwin touched the heart of the nation. 
The people everywhere felt that a great man, a true patriot and a 
wonderful genius had departed. A meeting was held in the recep- 
tion room of the senate chamber, which was attended by senators, 
representatives and distinguished citizens then at the capital, to tes- 
tify their deep sorrow at his death. Chief Justice Chase presided. 
The customary expressions of sorrow on such occasions were 
adopted. Representatives R. B. Hayes, Benjamin Eggleston, 



74 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

Samuel Shellabarger, James A. Garfield and Major Swain were 
appointed a committee to accompany his remains to Ohio. 

At this meeting elpquent and affectionate tributes to his genius 
and worth were uttered by the chief justice, Representative Robert 
C. Schenck, Senators Garrett Davis, Reverdy Johnson and John 
Sherman and the secretary of state, William H. Seward. Justice 
Chase remarked, on taking the chair, that the name of Thomas Cor- 

win "is itself a eulogy Great were his titles to honor won 

at the bar, in legislative halls and in executive councils ; but at this 
moment they seem insignificant in comparison w4th the admiration, 
love and veneration which gathered around him as a man. Let 
others call him senator, secretary, minister; let us call him man, our 
friend." 

General Schenck, who had studied law under Corwin and had 
known him long and intimately, said: "I am still trying to realize 
him dead, and my heart and mind are heavy and unsettled in the 
attempt to accept that fact. You, Mr. Chief Justice, have spoken 
feelingly, as well as fittingly, of the inexpressible loss we have sus- 
tained, of the great loss the country has sustained. I can add noth- 
ing now to what you have recalled of the great character and abili- 
ties of Mr. Corwin and of his brilliant career as a statesman and a 
patriot. We all stand here with hearts full and oppressed with the 
thought that — 

* Never any more 
Shall man look on him ; never any more. 
In hall or senate, shall his eloquent voice 
Give hope to a sick nation.' 

But, sir, my soul is fuller still of other remembrances. I think of 
the large heart that has been stilled in death, rather than of the 
great brain that has ceased its busy working. His genius, his 
humor, his eloquence, his extraordinary and varied powers and his 
eminent success in so many lines of public service, are at this 
moment but secondary in my mind to my recollection of his admira- 
ble qualities as a man." 

Senator Davis said: " In his moral structure Mr. Corwin was 
truly great and noble. Gentle, benevolent, genial, truthful, just and 
conscientious, he was a patriot without sectionalism, a friend of uni- 
versal liberty and a philanthropist without fanaticism." 

Secretary Seward delivered a beautiful and impressive address. 
He said that the longer he lived the more profoundly he felt the 



THE LAST OF EARTH. 75 

utter valuelessness of oratory and genius and all accomplishments, 
unless they were devoted to good and great ends. It was not what 
a man said or how he said it, but what he had done. Had he 
labored for his country? Had he worked for God and humanity? 
Judging Mr. Corwin by this standard, said Mr. Seward, he had noth- 
ing to wish for ; all his powers were consecrated to his country and 
to humanity. 

The next day, after appropriate ceremonies, in which the 
Masonic fraternity participated, the body was placed on a train and 
taken to his home in Ohio for interment. The burial was in the 
Lebanon cemetery and was attended by a large concourse, embrac- 
ing many distinguished men of the state, but the large majority was 
composed of old citizens of the town and county in which the 
departed statesman had so long lived, many of whom had known, 
loved and admired him for half a century. 

The following graphic description of the extraordinary scene at 
the death of Corwin was first published in the Ohio State Journal as 
an anonymous letter. It was written by Samuel Shellabarger, then 
a representative in congress: 

Washington, D. C, December 19, 1865. 

Dear Sir: — It has never been deemed an invasion of the sanctuary of 
private life to preserve for the world and history the last utterance and acts 
of the men of history. That license which admits the treasuring up of the 
' last things " of great and historic lives induces me to write down what I do 
here. 

It was never my lot before to be thrilled by seeing brought together in 
startling proximity life and death, mirth and mourning, fame and frailty, as I 
saw them brought together in the circumstances attending the last conscious 
moments of Thomas Corwin. How strange it seems to me now ! At a 
collection of men of Ohio, in which were Chase, and Wade, and Sherman, 
and Schenck, and Bingham, and Swayne, and fifty others of the public men 
of the state, Governor Corwin was present. Upon his entering the room 
he, of course, became, what he for forty years has been everywhere, where 
his presence was, the center of interest and admiration. In ten minutes 
after he entered the room I saw from a distance ( for I did not soon go to 
him) men collected and compacted around him in eager, excited, and, in 
some cases, ridiculous attitudes. Chief justice and associate justices of the 
supreme court of the United States, members of the cabinet, major-generals 
of the armies of the United States, senators in congress and members of the 
house of representatives were in the circle. Some were seated by him; 
some stood erect about his chair ; some leaned and pressed eagerly forward 



76 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

between the more inner circles of listeners, and pushed their ears forward to 
hear the words and whispers . which came from the center of the circle. 
Some sat, some stood, some kneeled, and all leaned forward to listen 

I watched occasionally the effect, upon this little company of men, of 
what was drawing them to that center. The strange magician had taken up 
once more, and the last time, his wand to try its spell upon a little company 
of its subjects. It was the same one with which so often before, in the mere 
wantonness and sport of his power, he had toyed and played with the storms 
of human passions which it conjured up, controlled and allayed at will. 

His youth, with its inimitable charms and graces, seemed for a moment 
to have come to him again. There were once more the flow of humor, the 
sparkle of merriment, the glow of enthusiasm, the flash of wit and the 
charms of anecdote and illustration ; and there the wondrous play of feature 
which made him CORWIN. Men came repeatedly out from his presence at 
that seat that night, exclaiming, "There is but one Corwin ! " For a 
moment men, who, a thousand times before, had bowed before the spell of 
genius, or had been swept off by its irresistible force, and then when the 
spell was gone, wondered at their frailty, here again became its victims. 

When at last the press about him lessened, I sat down by his side. 
What he happened first to say to me furnished one of those strange coinci- 
dences which help to invest our lives with a tinge of the mysterious and 
awful, and which makes us superstitious. One of his first utterances to me 
was a startling description of what Tom Corwin was to be in twenty-five min- 
utes after its utterance. It was this: He said, "You are more bald than 
when I saw yoi; last, the day before I sailed for Mexico." I said, " Yes." 
He said, with the semi-solemn, semi-comical face which has become histori- 
cal, " But then, Julius Caesar was bald." I said, " But Caesar had fits." 
Then he assumed a more serious manner, and said: " Twenty years ago I 
saw a man fall in apparently unconscious paralysis, when in the midst of 
excited discourse. He was carried out by his friends in this condition and 
his first act of consciousness was to utter the words you have just said: 'Caesar 
had fits.' " 

In twenty-five minutes after I assisted in carrying Corwin out in the 
precise condition he had so strangely described. He then went into a more 
general conversation with those about him ; asked after old friends of Ohio ; 
alluded to his late law partner. Judge Johnston, of Cincinnati, in terms of 
great kindness and as one of the most powerful advocates and best intellects 
he ever knew .... He told me how hard he worked. How hard it was 
to go up the long stairway of the treasury building. How the stories of his 
making large fees here were exaggerations. How he had lost a large fee 
due him in Mississippi. 

Then he was invited to repair to the refreshment room. He arose and 
asked me to accompany him, which I did ; Senator Wade joining us at the 



THE LAST OF EARTH. 77 

foot of the stairs. I urged him to be seated on a sofa at the table, which he 
expressed reluctance in taking, owing to the presence of ladies standing. On 
this sofa his last words were uttered in a few moments after. The scene I 
have alluded to as occurring below, was here speedily repeated. Eager 
men again pressed about him and leaned forward, and held their breath to 
catch his last utterance. Once or twice they shouted with laughter and 
clapped their hands in boisterous merriment ; and every eye and ear in the 
assemblage was directed to the seat where Tom Corwin was playing with 
skilled fingers upon that mystic harp whose cords are human passion, sym- 
pathy and emotion, with all the wizard skill and power which was of old. 
In a moment afterwards his voice suddenly sank to whispers, and then he 
raised forward his hands, asked for fresh air and fell into the arms of sur- 
rounding friends, and I helped carry him, speechless, from the chamber 
where his last auditory had just hung in love and admiration upon his lips, 
and stooped forward to get his last whispers. And we carried him into the 
death chamber whence a soul, more eloquent than Patrick Henry's, more 
beautiful than Sheridan's, more graceful than Cicero's, went back to God wha 
made it. 

When we laid him down he soon said to us, by a significant act, what 
he could not say by speech, "one side of me is dead." This he did by 
raising up one arm, grasping tightly his hand, and shaking his clenched fist. 
This he did twice, looking, at the same time earnestly and rather wildly into- 
the face of immediate bystanders. When he did this with his left hand his 
right one was lying dead at his side This act was instantly read by all as 
saymg to us, " one side is powerless, but the other is not." This was the 
last communication to his fellow man ever made by him, unless subsequent 
grasps of recognition may have indicated to a few that he knew them. 

And there at night I parted with that stricken man ! He, who had 
touched with the sceptre of his imperial and God-like intellect States, Nations, 
People, Courts and Senators, and made them all bow to the majesty of its 
power, was now touched — in his turn — touched by the sceptre of his Lord, 
and instantly bowed his head, and laid himself submissively down and died. 

I, a sojourner here at the National Capital for a few days, and who hap- 
pened to witness "The Last of Earth" to Corwin, wrote down this. Let it 
be preserved or thrown away as may be fit ; but whether preserved or thrown 
away — 

" our hearts, though young and brave, 

Still like muffled drums are beating 
Funeral marches to the grave." 



HIS MOST ELOQUENT SPEECH. 



The Mexican war speech in the senate has been often pro- 
nounced Corvvin's greatest oratorical effort, but tradition and contem- 
porary written accounts concur in representing another of his 
speeches, never reported and so lost^ as exceUing it. This was a 
defense of his course in reference to the Mexican war deHvered at 
his home ; and there is evidence that it was the most truly eloquent, 
most magnificent and overpowering effort of his life, and one which 
produced an effect on his hearers probably never equalled in our 
political oratory. 

The two speeches on the Mexican war in 1847, the one in the 
senate, the other at his home, mark the zenith of his parliamentary 
and popular eloquence. The first, he certainly never excelled or 
equalled in congress; the second, it is easy to believe from the 
reported effect on his audience, he never excelled or equalled in a 
popular address. As he was a greater orator before the people than 
in the senate, we can concur in the verdict of those who heard his 
Lebanon speech that it was the greatest of his life, if not the great- 
est piece of popular eloquence of an American orator. He was fif- 
ty-three years of age, in the ripe prime of his manhood and the full 
maturity of his intellect. He had the intensity of conviction and 
the courage to speak which together make eloquence one of the 
great moral forces of the world. The time, the place, the subject 
and the audience were all such as to bring out the highest powers of 
the orator. 

It was six months after his denunciation of the war of conquest 
and his vote against war supplies. He spoke in his own defense and 
in defense of truths and principles which he held dearer than his life. 
He was at his own home ; in the court-house where his voice had 
been so often heard ; surrounded by his friends and neighbors who 
had known him from boyhood. He was a senator, denounced by 

truckling politicians and servient newspapers all over the land as a 

(78) 



HIS MOST ELOQUENT SPEECH. 79 

traitor to his country. He did not speak as a politician explaining, 
excusing and extenuating what he had said and done; he reiterated 
and reaffirmed the doctrines and declarations of his speech in the 
senate and announced his fixed determination to abide by them. 

The war was not yet over. It was popular in the south and 
west; our armies had been successful, and Scott was even then mak- 
ing his triumphant march to the Mexican capital. The Whigs of 
Ohio did not boldly support Corwin. Would his neighbors and 
friends at his own home desert him ? It was not a time for the exer- 
cise of powers of wit and mirth-making. The speech was solemn, 
serious, pathetic, — one continuous torrent of invective, righteous 
indignation and patriotic appeal; and it is not hard to believe the tra- 
dition that old men who had employed the orator when a young 
lawyer, who had voted for him again and again, and who had seen 
with increasing admiration the growth of his fame, stood around him 
with streaming eyes, and when it was concluded pronounced the 
speech the greatest they ever heard. 

No effort to reproduce the words of the speaker was ever made, 
but full reports of the meeting were given in the press, and intelli- 
gent men wrote and published their impressions of this wonderful 
triumph of oratory, and described the effect it produced upon the 
hearers. It was on Saturday, August 28th, 1847. A Whig meet- 
ing had been announced with Corwin, a senator, and Robert C. 
Schenck, a representative in congress, as the speakers. There was 
no exciting election approaching and the meeting was not so large 
but that it could be held in the court-house. Most of the audience 
were the personal friends of Corwin, gathered from the farms and 
towns of his own county, but some were from neighboring counties. 
Some distinguished men were present. Ex-Governor Morrow came 
up from his farm and mill and presided. William Bebb, then gover- 
nor of the state, was one of the vice-presidents. The list of the 
officers of the meeting is worthy of preservation : 

President — Ex-Governor Jeremiah Morrow, of Warren. 

Vice-Presidents — Governor Bebb, Hon. John Woods and John M. 
Millikin, of Butler; John N. C. Schenck, of Warren, and John M. Galla- 
gher, of Clark. 

Secretaries — W. H. P. Denny, of Warren, and William C. Howells, 
of Butler. 

Committee on Resolutions — Lewis D. Campbell, of Butler; Hon. 
David Fisher, of Clinton ; Thomas B. Stevenson, of Cincinnati ; William 



80 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN 

Crosley, of Montgomery; and A. H. Dunlevy, J. J. Janney, Emmor Bailey^ 
Col. John Hopkins and Gideon D'Hart, of Warren. 

There was a meeting in the forenoon at which a long series of 
resolutions was adopted, one of which warmly endorsed Corwin's 
course in the senate, and especially commended him for opposing 
the Mexican war. Speeches were made by Campbell and Stevenson. 
In the afternoon the two orators of the day were heard. Schenck 
spoke first, occupying an hour and a half He had then served four 
years in congress and had already exhibited something of that 
remarkable ability as a speaker which led Blaine to write of him, 
long afterward, that no man in congress during his generation rivaled 
his marvelous power in the five minutes' discussion in the committee 
of the whole. Corwin spoke next. In reference to his speech, we 
quote first from the report of the meeting in the Lebanon Star, 
probably written by Denny, the editor: 

'' Now what shall we say of the speech of our fellow-citizen, Thomas 
Corwin? We have no disposition to indulge in fulsome flattery; that is 
unnecessary, but we must be permitted to record the unanimous sentiment of 
ail who heard it that it was the best speech Mr. Corwin ever made. And 
that, in our estimation, is the highest praise which can be bestowed on the 
effort. Its delivery occupied two hours and three quarters, and though the 
day was warm and the audience for the most part unseated, not a sign of 
restlessness was exhibited. The people, Whigs and Democrats, were spell- 
bound, and we believe that if the speech had lasted three hours longer it 
would have been listened to with unabated interest. As a specimen of elo- 
quence and argument we doubt if it has ever been surpassed. It was 
directed to the judgment as well as the passions .... The great responsi- 
bility of the citizen in exercising the right of suffrage was dwelt on with 
remarkable force. Voting right, conscientiously and intelligently, he 
regarded as the only safeguard of the republic. The annexation of Texas, 
the war and all the evils resulting from it, were legitimately chargeable to the 
people, who might by the election of Mr. Clay, have avoided them, and 
thus have preserved the peace, prosperity and honor of the country. Mr. 
Corwin reaffirmed and reiterated in the strongest language the doctrines and 
the policy embraced in his memorable speech last winter. They were right; 
and he intended hereafter to enforce them, not only as a public man but as a 
private citizen." 

Thomas B. Stevenson, a Kentuckian then editing the Cincinnati 
Atlas, wrote for his paper: 

" Mr. Schenck delivered a powerful discourse on the origin and objects 
of the war, as well as the means of terminating it honorably, and embracing 



HIS MOST ELOQUENT SPEECH. 81 

besides a masterly, manly and conclusive defense of himself for his own 
course in congress on that subject. He was listened to with deep attention 
and frequently responded to from the audience by expressive bursts of appro- 
bation as period after period of indignant attack or triumphant self-defense 
rolled eloquently from his tongue. 

" Mr. Corwin followed. We had never heard mm before. We have 
heard some good speaking in our time, having grown up among a people 
where oratory seems to be ' manor born,' but we must say (for sober convic- 
tion extorts it ) that Mr. Corwin's speech at Lebanon last Saturday was the 
noblest, whether considered with reference to its matter or manner, or both, 
that we ever heard. It was directed to a defense of his vote against war 
supplies ; to the maintenance of the fundamental principle of free govern- 
ment that the representatives of the people must judge of the propriety of 
objects for the attainment of which they are called to furnish means — a prin- 
ciple for which he solemnly declared he was ready to lay down his life as did 
our forefathers of the revolution ; and to the consideration of the practical 
means of preserving the union from overthrow threatened by the acquisition 
of new territory in the prosecution of the Mexican war. On this last point 
he concurred with Mr. Schenck and the resolutions of the meeting, that no 
safe plan of redemption remained but that of refusing to take any portion of 
Mexican territory. On the blessings of the union and on the means of its 
preservation, his eloquence seemed superhuman. Never before was assem- 
bled an audience so solemn, so rapt, so deeply moved ; and on the cheeks of 
the old, the middle-aged and the young tears rolled down as the eloquent 
and patriotic truths of the noble orator of the people fell from lips that 
seemed almost inspired. 

" But we feel how vain and presumptuous the attempt to describe such 
a speech. Some idea of its eloquence and power and effect may be inferred, 
though not realized, by the fact that every one who heard it declared it the 
ablest speech the orator ever delivered ; and to say that Mr. Corwin surpassed 
himself is the highest eulogium that can be pronounced upon this effort. It 
certainly was superior in ability to his great speech in the senate ; and it 
would be worth more to this country than the expenses of the Mexican war, 
could it be printed verbatim and given to every man, woman and child in the 
land. It should be put into the hands of school boys for all time to come." 

A. P. Russell, in his sketch of Corwin, says of this speech : 

"There was not a humorous word in it; it was grave, sober, serious, 
tragic. The struggles of the orator, at times, to express himself were pain- 
ful to witness. The great veins and muscles in his neck enlarged; his face 
was distorted ; his arms wildly reached and his hands desperately clutched, 
clutched in paroxysms of unutterable emotion. Men left their seats, and 
gathered close around him, standing through most of the speech ; and many 



82 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

of them unconsciously repeated with their hps, almost audibly every word 
that he uttered — the tears streaming over their faces. Every man in the 
audience was his personal friend. The speech was a long one, lasting two 

or three hours The audience dissolved of itself, swarming over the 

streets and side-walks, nearly every auditor going his own way alone. 
Schenck and Stevenson walked down the street together, but did not speak a 
word for a block or two. All at once Schenck ejaculated: ''What a 
speech ! " " Yes," responded Stevenson, with Kentucky emphasis, " what a 
speech ! I was born and bred in a land of orators ; have been accustomed 
all my life to hear such giants as Clay and Menifee, Crittenden and Mar- 
shall; but blessed be God! I never heard a speech like that." 



REMINISCENCES. 



Thomas Corwin was rather above the usual size. He was about 
five feet ten inches high, of large frame, and in the later years of his 
life rather heavy. His head was finely shaped. There was some- 
thing in his appearance to attract a second look from a stranger. In 
person, he was impressive and full of dignity, yet kindliness and 
benevolence shone out from his eyes and face. His countenance 
was pleasing rather than handsome. His hair and eyes were black ; 
his complextion unusually dark, but the saying that he was "the 
blackest white man in the United States " was an exaggeration. 
When Corwin and Hamer were the greatest orators of the rival polit- 
ical parties of Ohio, the former was famous in popular story for his 
dark face, and the latter for his red hair. When Corwin was about 
to begin a speech in the open air with the sun shining full upon the 
platform, and friendly hands raised an umbrella to shield him from 
the sun's rays, he said: "I do not think the sun will spoil my com- 
plexion." 

In public speaking he had the most remarkable facial expression 
of any orator of his time. The movements of his features were 
sometimes rather grotesque. He spoke with face and eyes as well 
as with his tongue. His voice was not deep or powerful, but musi- 
cal and clear, and could be heard over a large open-air meeting. He 
did not attempt to hold attention by noise and vehemence. Though 
he was at times impassioned and on rare occasions even terrible in 
his invective, his manner was usually self-possessed and the tones of 
his voice rich and mellow, but earnest and persuasive. He had great 
dramatic power, which was evidently natural. In his public speak- 
ing there was an entire absence of formality and the studied graces 
of the schools. In his greatest efforts there was no striving after 
learning, rhetoric or oratory. His greatest speeches would be de- 
livered with infinite ease. He spoke not merely as a great orator but 

(83) 



84 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

as a great man, who was the complete master of himself, and was 
never lost in thoughts too high or too deep, or was overwhelmed 
with the vastness of his theme. 

In preparing a speech Corwin sometimes made a full brief, and 
sometimes wrote a page or two which might serve as an exordium or 
peroration ; but it is believed that none of his great speeches in con- 
gress or in political campaigns were written out before their delivery. 
The Mexican war speech bears evidence, however, of careful prepar- 
ation. He disliked even the labor of writing out his speeches for 
publication from the stenographer's notes ; they always disappointed 
him. A volume in his library is still pointed out, containing selec- 
tions of great speeches of British orators, in which he was often 
seen to read while meditating upon a public effort, doubtless for the 
purpose of getting his mind into a proper mood, and imbibing 
something of the style and diction of a master of the English 
tongue. He would use the same illustrations, both for amusement 
and for argument, again and again, especially in his campaign speak- 
ing. The humorous description of the militia parade, in his reply to 
General Crary, is said to have been first given by him in a speech at 
his home in a trial before a justice of the peace; and A. P. Russell 
tells us that he heard the sublime passages in the Mexican war 
speech on Napoleon and the burning of Moscow, given by Corwin 
before a small audience at a debate in the Mechanics' Institute at 
Lebanon before the delivery of the speech in the senate. 

Judge George R. Sage relates the following in illustration of the 
orator's method of preparing a public address: In 1859 Corwin 
consented to deliver the oration at the celebration of the fourth of 
July on the Tippecanoe battle grounds, and a large assembly was 
expected. In the latter part of the night preceding the celebration, 
Corwin called Mr. Sage, his son-in-law, to his room and said that he 
was not well and was much discouraged about his address the next 
day ; he had been unable to sleep and in trying to think over his 
speech, his memory seemed to have entirely failed him. Mr. Sage 
advised him to dismiss from his mind all thoughts of his speech, 
take no thought of the morrow and go to sleep. He said he would 
try to do so. In the morning the orator was seriously indisposed 
and declared that he could not speak at all. To lessen the disap- 
pointment of the people, the master of ceremonies at the celebra- 
tion asked if Governor Corwin could not ride out to the grounds in 
a carriage and take a seat on the platform. He consented to do so 



REMINISCENCES. 85 

and at the proper time arose to explain his inabihty to speak. The 
audience was estimated at forty thousand. After a few remarks he 
struck upon the first sentence of a manuscript he had prepared; 
then Mr. Sage whispered to the president of the day, "It is all 
right ; he will speak ;" and the orator went on and delivered a fine 
address, two hours long, without referring to a note or memorandum. 
The manuscript he had prepared was only about a page and a half 
of legal cap, and was to serve as the beginning of the speech. 

Perhaps no orator, not of the pulpit, ever drew more frequent 
illustrations from the Bible. Like Fisher Ames, he is said to have 
been a constant reader of the Bible, and to have greatly admired the 
simplicity and purity of the language of the common English ver- 
sion. His mind was well stored with biblical history and deeply im- 
bued with the bold and tender imagery of Hebrew poetry. He 
sometimes advised a law student to read the Bible as a first book in 
his course of studies. 

The renown of Corwin as an orator, especially in his own state, 
was due more to his extempore speeches on the stump and at the 
bar, never reported and now lost, than to those which have been pre- 
served. The talk of the people made him famous. It was the 
recollection of the masses wherever he spoke, the popular reports of 
political campaigns in which he excelled all other speakers, and of 
law-suits in which he carried the jury with him by his wit and elo- 
quence, the thousand familiar anecdotes — many of them apocryphal 
— with which his name was associated, to which is to be attributed the 
strong hold his name had upon the popular heart. Even to the 
school-boys of Ohio for a generation the name of Tom Corwin was 
■more familiar than that of the president. W. H. Venable, the 
teacher-poet, was a native of Mr. Corwin's county and a school-boy 
when the orator was most famous. In some familiar reminiscences 
-of his boyhood, Venable writes: 

"The air was saturated with anecdotes of Tom Corwin, and even the 
small boys of Warren county could feel the force of that great orator's elo- 
quence and enjoy the ludicrous comicality of his grotesque faces. I heard 
him speak more than once, both at the bar and on the stump, and, young as 
I was, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The universal talk caused by 
his great speech against the Mexican war impressed even the children of that 
period, for it was very violent talk. My father, being an abolitionist, 
approved of the sentiments of the speech. . When the war with Mexico 
broke out I was going to school at Ridgeville, I remember, and some of the 



86 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

boys stained their hands with poke-berry juice and then cried out: " If I 
were a Mexican, as I am an American, I would welcome the American sol- 
diers with bloody hands to hospitable graves." 

Only a few poetic quotations are found in Corwin's printed 
speeches and none of more than three lines ; but he was a reader of 
poetry and was able to repeat many poetic gems from memory. In 
driving past his boyhood home, he pointed out to his daughter the 
tree under which, when a boy, he first read Allan Ramsay's " Gentle 
Shepherd." His friend, Dunlevy, relates that, when law students 
together, he and Corwin would repeat to each other poems they 
admired and had committed to memory. In a letter to the publish- 
ers of this work, Samuel Shellabarger relates an incident, told him 
by Roscoe Conkling, illustrating Corwin's ability to repeat poetry. 
When Corwin and Conkling were members of the thirty-sixth con- 
gress, they were riding together on a steamboat on the Ohio. The 
weather was warm and they sat up on deck rather than go to bed, 
and fell into a poetic contest, each striving to outdo the other in 
reciting gems of poetry. At length Corwin proposed that each 
should repeat the most beautiful poem relating to death at his com- 
mand. Conkling was somewhat taken aback by the proposal, but 
he struck on some lines of one of Mrs. Barbauld's hymns, after 
which Corwin repeated a passage from Walter Scott's "Rokeby," 
including the lines put into the mouth of the buccaneer about 
to die: 

And now my race of terror run, 
Mine be the eve of tropic sun. 
No pale gradations quench his ray, 
No twilight dews his wrath allay ; 
With disk like battle-target red. 
He rushes to his burning bed, 
Dyes the wide wave with bloody light. 
Then sinks at once — and all is night. 

In the same conversation with Mr. Shellabarger, Mr. Conkling spoke 
of the style and characteristics of Mr. Corwin's oratory, and main- 
tained that while his wit and imagination were unique and superb, 
yet the most striking and in fact the characterizing quality of his 
genius was grandeur combined with the awful ; this, Mr. Conkling 
msisted, marked pre-eminently his greatest productions, and in illus- 
tration he recited portions of the most brilliant passages of the 
Mexican war speech. 



REMINISCENCES. 87 

Corwin, so far as is known to the writer, delivered only one 
lyceum lecture. In 1859 he gave the first of a course of lectures in 
his own town for the benefit of the Congregational society then 
erecting a new house of worship; and this lecture he repeated in 
Henry Ward Beecher's church, after leaving his home to take his 
seat in the thirty-sixth congress. Beecher had made his church a 
temple of free speech, but most of the lectures heard from its plat- 
form were from radical leaders of the anti-slavery agitation. Cor- 
win's lecture was patriotically intended as a corrective of the danger- 
ous tendencies of the Garrison school of agitators, and he must have 
found his conservative views out of tune in Plymouth church. His 
subject was "The Duties of the American Citizen," and in his lec- 
ture he argued the obligation of every citizen to obey the laws of his 
country. This meant that the fugitive slave law should be obeyed 
and not resisted. The time was one of unusual excitement. The 
John Brown raid had occurred. There had just been a dangerous 
crisis in Ohio. A mob had resisted the return of a slave. An 
effort had been made to induce the supreme court of the state to 
override the judgment of the federal courts, and to discharge from 
jail a prisoner convicted by the United States district court of violat- 
ing the law for the return of fugitives from labor. Grave apprehen- 
sions were felt of an armed conflict between the state and the 
national authorities ; and of the great battle between the free and 
slave states being begun by a northern state resisting a law of 
congress. The Ohio supreme court, by a majority of only one, 
held that the state ought not to interfere with the action of the fed- 
eral courts within their constitutional limits. Judge Swan, one of 
the ablest jurists of the state, on account of his concurrence in this 
decision, was refused a renomination by the Ohio Republican state 
convention. The "higher law" was preached in northern pulpits. 
The Plymouth pastor, in denouncing the fugitive slave law, had 
declared that "the law of God is above all laws, national or state, 
constitutional or unconstitutional, and must first be obeyed." Cor- 
win now preached from the greatest pulpit in the land the doctrine 
that the law of God required obedience to the laws of the land. 
We have divine authority to make laws, he said. 

"Are you then," he asked, " under any moral obligation to obey the 
laws when they are made ? I say you are. I say every clergyman is under 
that obligation. Every man, every woman and every child when he 
comes to years of accountability, have imposed upon them a moral obliga- 



88 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

tion, the discharge of which will be accounted an acceptable service at that 
great tribunal, where we must all stand after our ignorance has gone, and 
when we stand in the sunlight of eternity. How the pardoning power may 
be exercised when poor ignorant man stands up, saying that it was conscience 

that taught him it was right to disobey law, I have no knowledge But 

what then ? A gentleman rises up from prayer and says that a law is very 
wrong ; that it commands a wicked thing ; he cannot obey it. There are two 
alternatives for such a man, exik and the grave. Either of them is very 
unpleasant to weak humanity." 

A few evenings before the delivery of his lecture in Brooklyn, 
Corwin sat on the platform of Beecher's church and heard for the 
first time the most accomplished of the northern advocates of disun- 
ion, Wendell Phillips, in one of his radical lectures, "The Lesson of 
the Hour." He was charmed with the manner and style of the 
great orator ; and he once said to the writer of these pages, that he 
never heard a speaker use the English language with such terseness 
and purity as Wendell Phillips. But no two men could differ more 
in their views on great public questions. A newspaper writer 
watched Corwin's countenance as the lecturer proceeded to eulogize 
John Brown as the greatest of American heroes, and denounce the 
constitution and the union. At times he was entranced with the 
eloquence of the speaker, but when Webster and Clay were held 
responsible for the Mexican war, Corwin shook his head, and when 
the constitution of the United States was pronounced, in language 
borrowed from Isaiah, ' ' a covenant with death and an agreement 
with hell," his dark face seemed darker than ever, and he looked like 
"a god made wroth." 

Corwin was a wonderful conversationist. In his later years 
conversation came to be his chief amusement. His leisure hours in 
youth were spent in reading, in after life in talking. He was not 
like Dr. Johnson, "a. tremendous companion," who talked for vic- 
tory and was vehement, dogmatic and irascible. He charmed and 
delighted with his conversation. No man in the nation was more 
welcome at a public reception in Washington when he could be 
heard to talk. Ex-President Hayes, not long before his death, in 
an interview, said: "Corwin was one of the most wonderful talk- 
ers I have ever met. He was the center of every company he 
entered, and if he were with us to-day he would monopolize the con- 
versation and would talk for hours. We would be glad to listen to 



REMINISCENCES. 89 

him, and it was so everywhere, even to the day of his death. He 
was the best story-teller I have ever known." 

A striking figure in Corwin's county was Orson S. Murray, who 
published on his fruit farm on the Little Miami, "The Regenerator," 
an anti-slavery and anti-religious journal. He had come from Ver- 
mont and Whittier described him as "a man terribly in earnest, with 
a zeal that bordered on fanaticism and who was none the more senial 
for the mob-violence to which he had been subjected." He disre- 
garded the conventional in his dress and mode of life as well as in 
his beliefs ; he wore his beard unshaven and his long hair hung down 
on his shoulders. He was once called as a witness in a law-suit at 
Lebanon, but his testimony was objected to on the ground that he 
did not believe in a God and a future state of rewards and punish- 
ments. Corwin argued in favor of receiving his testimony, but it 
was under the old constitution of Ohio, and the court would not per- 
mit him to tell what he knew about the case, though no one ques- 
tioned his sincerity or truthfulness. As the philosopher was leaving 
the court-room in just indignation, Corwin touched him on the shoul- 
der and said: "My old friend, go home, shave, shear, turn hypo- 
crite like the rest of us, then come back and your word will be as 
good as ours." Only a few years later a new constitution was 
adopted in Ohio which declared that no person should be incompetent 
to be a witness on account of his religious belief. 

When Corwin was at his home in Lebanon, not long before his 
death, a student of theology called upon him to pay his respects. 
As the young man was taking his leave, Corwin said: "You are 
preparing for the ministry; a noble profession. Serve God; obey 
the king. Good-night." 

He did not believe there was great danger of a young man 
injuring his health by hard study. When his son was attending col- 
lege at Granville, Ohio, Mr. Corwin wrote to him: " I am informed 
that you are seriously injuring your health by study. Very few 
young men now-a-days are likely to be injured in this way and if 
you should kill yourself by overstudy, it will give me great pleasure 
to attend your funeral." 

Those who knew him best knew that he was a profoundly seri- 
ous man. He was, like Lincoln, a story-teller and a humorist, but at 
heart a sad man. Even his fame as a wit sometimes made him feel 
that his life had been a failure. General Garfield relates that "he 
remarked very sadly one evening that it was the greatest mistake of 



90 IFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

his life that he had ever cracked a joke or made a funny speech, for 
people would never believe that a funny man could have any solid 
abilities, and if he did not make a funny speech his audience would 
be disappointed." To a young speaker Corwin gave the advice: 
"Never make people laugh. If you would succeed in life, you 
must be solemn, solemn as an ass. All the great monuments are 
built o\^er solemn asses." It is doubtless true that the mass of those 
who assembled to hear him expected to be amused rather than 
instructed, and the brilliance of his genius and the fascination of his 
wit tended to make the world less appreciative of his real merits as 
a profound thinker and a well-read statesman. But Corwin over- 
looked the truth that mirth-provoking humor may be of a high order 
and exercised for noble ends, and a witticism may be immortal. 

Of Corwin's kindness to young men, especially those who man- 
ifested a desire for literary culture, there is a concurrence of testi- 
mony. Andrew G. McBurney, a successful lawyer, member of the 
state senate and lieutenant-governor of Ohio, was, at the time Cor- 
win was beginning to attract the attention of the nation, a poor boy 
in Lebanon who had learned the trade of cabinet-making, but mani- 
fested a strong desire for reading and learning. Corwin noticed his. 
taste for books, and on one occasion, as McBurney related a quarter 
of a century afterward, met him on the street and advised him to 
join in the debates of the Mechanics' Institute, gave him advice as to 
public speaking and tendered him the use of his private library, not 
in a formal way, but in such a manner that the tender was accepted 
by the young man, who never forgot the kindness. "He was ever 
ready and anxious," wrote McBurney, "to assist the poor young 
man who was striving to acquire an education or a profession ; often 
inquiring as to his progress and course of study, and making timely 
suggestions, giving wise and useful counsel, and offering the use of 
his books." 

Addison P. Russell relates that when he was a printer at Leba- 
non, Governor Corwin one day came into the office of the Western 
Star where he was at work, and picking up a volume belonging to 
Russell which lay in the window asked for the use of it for a few 
days. It was a translation of Dante. When the governor returned 
the book a week or two later, he came at night into the room of the 
young printer who was sitting alone by the fire. Corwin sat down 
in a chair as if he had come to stay; he began talking first about 



REMINISCENCES. 91 

Dante whom he had not read for many years, but the Divine Comedy 
had engrossed him for the day ; he gave something of an analysis of 
the great poem, then launching away into a vasty deep, he talked in 
a soliloquy or monologue on life and death, the present and the 
future, reality and possibility. "Oh, how profoundly and sublimely 
he talked. Every sentence was big with thought, experience and 
emotion, and every one seemed bigger than the one which preceded 
it." Thus the great man continued until midnight with no listener 
but a silent printer boy, but one who he knew had a love of liter- 
ature and had already acquired the literary art. Russell closes his 
little book, "Thomas Corwin, a Sketch," after telling the story of 
this talk, with the declaration: "But for that memorable demon- 
stration of his genius, this monograph would never have been 
written." 

Great as was Corwin's versatility he did not excel as a letter- 
writer. His official papers show a felicitous style, but not much of 
his private correspondence would be worthy of preservation. He 
did not wield a facile pen and his handwriting was not good. He 
disliked the labor of writing and most of his letters were short and 
carelessly written. Two of his brief letters, never before printed, 
are here given. Both were copied for this work from the originals 
in his possession by Isaac Strohm, author of the sketch of the life of 
Corwin prefixed to the volume of his speeches published in 1859. 
The first is a rough draft of a letter found in a waste basket at 
Washington soon after his retirement from the cabinet and was 
intended to accompany a present to a friend whose name is not 
given : 

"1 have long known your high appreciation of the literary as. well as 
personal character of Charles Lamb. I could worship him if it were only 
for his almost divine affection to his sister, and the sacrifices made by him to 
that holy sentiment; — sacrifices which only such as he are permitted by 
Almighty God to make. And then, how many a ' carking care ' is con- 
sumed in the exquisite humor of Elia ! 

"As we shall soon be separated by half a thousand miles of space, I 
felt a wish to leave with you some memento which, while it might keep alive 
and fresh the memory of an absent friend, would associate him with pure 
and agreeable thoughts. I could think of nothing better for these ends than 
this humble Christmas present — the works of Charles Lamb. Long may you 
live to admire the author, and revel in the varied and singular wealth of his 



92 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

works. You cannot be very unhappy while you possess the genius and taste 
requisite for either. 

"With a fervent prayer that many and many a return of happy and 
still happier Christmas days may be in store for you, I am and shall always 
■be Your sincere friend, 

Tho. Corwin." 

The other was written in reply to a proposition to publish a 
volume of his speeches with a sketch of his life. The letter making 
the proposition was written soon after Mr. Corwin's election to the 
thirty-sixth congress and opened with a congratulation on that event. 

" Lebanon, 29th October, 1858 
<' Dear Sir : 

" Congratulations on the happening of good luck, or on the achieve- 
ment of great enterprizes, or on any event which is agreeable, are always 
acceptable. Now, I am not quite sure that my election is to be classed, 
philosophically, with either of the before-mentioned circumstances. My past 
public life has been replete with disappointments. I have fallen so far short 
of accomplishing what I and others aimed to do, that I have little hope of 
the future. But I have resolved to make another effort to right the ship, and 
if we fail we will have the consolation to know that we did not stand on the 
shore while the goodly vessel was swamped in the surf. 

''As to the life and speeches which you propose to publish, I scarcely 
know what to say. It is a very small matter to be' uncertain about, and yet 
it wears about it a. certain dash of egotism. It seems like consenting to be 
dressed up and exhibited as 'a show.' Does it not wear that look? 
And yet, others have done very much the same thing for the sake of 
posterity !!!.... The life, God help me, can be written in an hour. My 
inner life, the world in which my whole soul has lived, has been and will for- 
ever be, even to my intimate friends, unknown. And yet this is all of Me 
that is worth knowing. But this I am prone to believe is true of all men 
and women who are blest or cursed with natures which will not rest upon 
attainments which seem to be the highest permitted to poor, short-sighted, 
ruined humanity. But — amen — I must not preach now. Yours truly, 

Tho. Corwin." 

Perhaps the gravest defect in the character of Corwin was a 
carelessness in pecuniary matters. If this were a grievous fault, 
grievously did he answer it. His life was almost a constant struggle 
with financial embarrassments. Want of prudence in private affairs 
is not to be excused in a public man even though it be, as in Cor- 
win, a failing which leans to virtue's side. It was the generosity of 



REMINISCENCES. 93 

his nature which led him to spend money too freely and to become 
security for an embarrassed friend when he was unable to pay his 
own debts. During much, if not most of his life, he was oppressed 
with a heavy burden of debt. The same mail which brought letters 
offering assistance to nominate him for president brought others from 
pressing creditors he had not the heart to reply to. "I wonder," 
he is reported to have said, "if any other man ever hid from the 
constable to read letters proposing him for the presidency." His 
intimate friend, Dunlevy, wrote of him in 1840: 

" Mr. Corwin is in moderate circumstances. Had he been a money- 
making man, he might have been independently rich. His practice at the 
bar has been extensive and he is the first man known to the writer who 
retained and attended to it after holding and faithfully filling a seat in con- 
gress. The amount he might have hoarded from his practice would have 
been great had he been as exact about collecting fees as some other gentle- 
men of his profession. But he was careless of collecting fees and his purse- 
strings were always too loosely held to retain what he did realize. He is dis- 
tinguished for his liberality and has bestowed a handsome estate, as the 
writer well knows, in charity and in aiding such as required his assistance." 

Corwin's want of foresight and prudence prevented him from 
ever attaining what Gibbon calls, in his autobiography, "the first of 
earthly blessings, independence." He felt that he never was the 
complete master of his own time and actions or had full opportunity 
to follow his own tastes. There is an allusion to the chain of depen- 
dence and duty which bound him in a private letter to the author of 
the "Corwin Genealogy," who before the publication of that work 
sent him some of the results of his researches. The letter is dated 
at Lebanon, September 5th, 1859, and concludes as follows: 

" Your researches sent me, for which I thank you, are curious enough 
and must have cost great labor and much time. But I have resolved not to 
enter into that Battle of the Books. Nevertheless, had I the leisure, I dare 
say I should take as much delight in such inquiries as yourself. But my 
tastes have never had fair play. The actual affairs around me and upon me 
have driven me, like a slave, through a very busy and very unprofitable life 
thus far . . . .1 should like to know you personally. Can you tell me how 
I can find you and when ? I am again in that turbid water, politics. If 
you come to Washington next winter, you will find me amongst the monsters^ 
big and little, that swim in that sea of troubles. Truly yours, 

Thomas Corwin." 
E. T. Corwin. 



94 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

The residence of Corwin at Lebanon was on the bank of a 
small stream which during most of his life was the western border of 
the town. It was a large old-fashioned frame house without archi- 
tectural pretensions, built in Corwin's youth, and in it he was mar- 
ried. In few mansions of Ohio has there been dispensed a more 
generous or genial hospitality. Distinguished statesmen, visiting 
clergymen and the pleasure-seeking young were alike welcome. 
Mrs. Corwin was a tall and stately woman of commanding presence, 
and sensible, rather than brilliant. She was the daughter of Dr. 
John Ross, a physician of the vicinity of Philadelphia, and on her 
mother's side related to the Randolphs of Virginia. Her tastes 
were domestic and she was never dazzled by the brilliance of public 
life. Her married life was spent at her Lebanon home, except two 
or three years in Washington, while her husband was secretary of 
the treasury. She survived her husband thirteen years and died in 
1878, aged eighty-three years. 

Corwin was singularly affectionate in his family. His love for 
his daughters was intense, and their marriage gave him pain. When 
the first wedding of a daughter occurred, he manifested so much 
feeling that the occasion partook more of the aspect of a funeral than 
a wedding, and during the marriage service he shed tears. General 
Garfield relates that after his return to Washington from the wedding 
of his youngest daughter, Corwin told him he suffered the pangs of 
jealousy in the thought that his daughter loved another man more 
than she loved him. He was the father of five children, all of whom 
survived him. His only son, William Henry, graduated at Gran- 
ville College, was secretary of legation to Mexico from 1861 to 
1864, and charge d'affaires at the same capital from 1864 to 1866, 
and after his return practiced medicine at Lebanon. He was 
never married and died in 1880. Catherine, the eldest daughter, 
died unmarried. Evelina became the wife of Geo. R. Sage, a Cin- 
cinnati lawyer, afterwards judge of the United States district court ; 
Louisa, the wife of Reverend E. B. Burrows, of the Congregational 
church ; and Caroline, the wife of Dr. Charles Cropper, a physician 
of CinciniTiati. 

In early manhood he became an active and conspicuous mem- 
ber of the Masonic fraternity. The Masonic lodge at Lebanon was 
chartered about the time he began the study of law, and in 1819, 
two years after his admission to the bar, he was master of this lodge ; 
he was grand orator of the grand lodge of Ohio in 1821 and in 



REMINISCENCES. 95 

1826, deputy grand master of Ohio in 1823 and 1827, and grand 
master in 1828. He became a Knight Templar in 1818 at Worth- 
ington, Ohio, in the first Templar organization west of the Alleghen- 
ies; and in 1826 he organized and presided over the first Templar 
encampment in Lebanon. 

He was not a church-member. He was reared in a Baptist fam- 
ily and his wife and daughters were members of the Baptist church. 
The bible, the pulpit and the Christian religion were always referred 
to in his public addresses with respect and reverence. In his beau- 
tiful picture in congress of the smiling harvests of civilization spring- 
ing up in the region lately red with the blood of savage war, he 
said: "That holy religion, which is at last the only sure basis of 
permanent social or political improvement, has there its voices cry- 
ing in the wilderness." 

The grave of Corwin in the Lebanon cemetery is marked by a 
granite shaft, but he erected for himself a more enduring monument 
in his speech against the Mexican war. In the early history of 
Ohio, while Thomas Corwin was a school-boy, the land which sur- 
rounds his grave, then covered with the primeval forest, was tendered 
by his uncle as a donation for the site of a college ; and the commis- 
sioners appointed by the legislature of Ohio to select a place for 
Miami University, on August 16th, 1809, reported that after an ex- 
tended examination, they had chosen "a site in the county of Warren 
on the western side of the town of Lebanon, on the land of Ichabod 
Corwin, at a white oak tree marked M. U." This white oak tree 
stood but a few rods east of the grave of Corwin. The legislature 
by a law afterward established that institution at Oxford, where it 
has remained until the present time. 

The career of Corwin as a public man is one in which the 
American people can take pride. Though with self-depreciation in 
his last years he was made sad with the reflection that he might be 
remembered only as a joker, and though it is true that the recollec- 
tion of his humor has best preserved his name among the common 
people, he will be remembered as more than a mere humorist. Of 
our wits, he was the greatest statesman ; of our statesmen, he was 
the greatest wit. The Whig party during its short life had for its 
leaders the greatest men of the nation, and among them Corwin's 
place is in the front rank. His name is recorded high up in the roll 
of the greatest American orators; he made one of the most truly 



96 LIFE OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

eloquent speeches ever delivered in the United States senate, and it 
was in behalf of justice, humanity and national honor. He hated 
slavery and firmly and consistently resisted its extension ; yet along 
with Clay, Webster and Everett he went to the extremest verge of 
conciliation to save the union and the constitution. He had a broad 
love of country and a sublime devotion to the union. In the fore- 
front of his characteristics was his moral courage. His most mem- 
orable speech was the bravest ever heard in congress. He was free 
from the taint of demagogism. As a public man he never gave up 
a great principle for the sake of preferment, and as a private citizen 
he freely gave expression on proper occasions to his convictions on 
great public questions. 



SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 



(97) 



SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS AS GOVERNOR OF OHIO. 

Delivered to the Legislature December i6, 1840. 



Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives : 

Having been properly advised of my election to the office of 
Governor of the State, I am here, in obedience to the law, to enter 
upon the discharge of those duties which the constitution and laws 
of Ohio devolve upon that officer. 

Few and comparatively unimportant as are the duties which 
our constitution has assigned to the chief executive magistrate of the 
State, still it is obvious that an upright and faithful discharge of 
these is due to the interests as well as the just expectations of the 
people. 

While I am fully impressed with that truth, so prominent in all 
systems of representative government, that every public functionary 
chosen by the people is but the instrument selected for the execution 
of those principles of government which prompt the bestowment of 
their suffiages upon him, yet I cannot omit the present as the most 
proper occasion for expressing the deep sense I entertain of the 
honor which, in this instance, that selection has conferred upon me. 
The grateful recollection which I shall ever cherish of this distin- 
guished testimonial of its confidence, with the interest I cannot but 
feel in common with every citizen, for the advancement of the last- 
ing prosperity and true glory of the State, will, I trust, furnish at all 
times adequate motives to myself, and sure guarantees to the people, 
for at least an honest and faithful effort in all things falling within the 
constitutional limits of executive duty. The narrow limits within 
which the executive power is circumscribed by the constitution of 

(99) 



100 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

Ohio has been the subject of much curious speculation — of no little 
censure by some, and of high encomium by others. Neither the 
Constitution of the United States, nor those of few, if any, of the 
States in the Union, furnish a parallel to this strongly-defined feature 
in ours. With us the executive has no agency whatever in the 
enactment of laws, except the very feeble and humble one, if agency 
it may be called, of " recommending such measures as he may deem 
expedient." The laws, when passed through both branches of the 
Legislature, are not submitted for executive approval, nor has he, in 
any contingency, that "veto power" which, by one class of political 
philosophers, has been deemed essential to protect the people against 
a supposed hasty, impolitic, or unconstitutional action of the legis- 
lative department. Except in one or two instances of very subordi- 
nate character, the power of appointment to office by the Governor is 
limited to such vacancies as may occur in the recess of the Legisla- 
ture, and such appointments, when made, expire, by express limita- 
tion, at the close of the next succeeding session of that body. The 
admirers of a strong executive have, in my judgment, most errone- 
ously supposed that a large patronage, resulting from the power of 
appointment to office, was a necessary branch of executive power, in 
order to give stability to the Government and secure a prompt and 
faithful execution of the laws. The denial of this, as well as the 
veto power, to the Executive by our constitution ( forming, as they 
do, a striking peculiarity) can probably only be rationally accounted 
for by reference to the history of the times which gave it birth. 
The constitution of Ohio was formed in November, 1802, very 
soon after a most animated struggle between two great political par- 
ties in the United States, which had resulted in the election of Mr. 
Jefferson to the Presidency. Of the questions which divided the peo- 
ple of that day, that touching the powers and patronage of the Exec- 
utive was prominent. They who favored a restricted power, and 
stinted executive patronage, prevailed, and of this school (then 
denominated Republican) was the convention that framed our Con- 
stitution. A fearful jealousy of executive power, with a strong con- 
viction of the pernicious influence of executive patronage, all will 
agree, are indelibly impressed upon their work, and our experience 
of nearly forty years has given abundant proofs of the wisdom 
which (in this respect at least) exerted its influence upon their 
labors. Under this system, Ohio, it is believed, has advanced with 
a pace equal to any of her sister States in the augmentation of her 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 101 

population and the development of her resources ; nor in those laws 
and social institutions which advance the intellectual and moral con- 
dition of a people need she fear a comparison with much older com- 
munities, governed by different organic laws. Under this constitu- 
tion, the rights of person and property have been fully protected ; 
all the great guarantees of civil liberty have been preserved, and, in 
the vicissitudes of war and peace, the laws have, in general, been 
promptly and vigorously enforced. If occasional and even flagrant 
exceptions to this view of our history are to be found, it will be 
readily seen that they were of short duration and had not their ori- 
gin in the want of executive power to prevent or control them. 
After an interval of forty years the people of the United States 
have again agitated the subject of a strong or restricted executive 
action in the Federal Government, and again decided it as they did 
in 1800 — furnishing to the citizen of Ohio another proud testimonial 
of the excellence, in this particular, of the constitution under which 
he lives. 

I advert to this subject now with no view to particular legisla- 
tion but upon the supposition that a contingency may arise when it 
may become the duty of the Legislature to express, in the usual 
way, the opinions of the State upon it, in reference to some modi- 
fication of the executive power as defined in the Constitution of the 
United States. 

Under our complex system of government no subject has given 
rise to greater difficulty, or variety of opinion, than that of the 
true division of legislative power, under the Constitution, between 
the General Government and the States. 

On all subjects of this character, prudence and patriotism alike 
demand that both parties should forbear, if possible, to enter the 
field of conflict in pursuit of a questionable claim of jurisdiction. 
That spirit of concession, so powerfully operative in the formation of 
the Federal Constitution, should always be invoked by those whose 
duty it may be, either as officers of the General or State authorities, 
to fix its true interpretation. When we regard, however, the invari- 
able tendency of power to reach after still further and more extended 
dominion, and when we consider the obvious advantage which the 
National Government enjoys in a conflict with a single State of the 
Union, arising from its greater wealth and patronage, and by conse- 
quence its superior influence over public opinion, it becomes the 
obvious duty of the State Legislatures to watch with vigilance, and. 



102 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

on all questions not within the province of the judiciary, to assert, in 
a peaceful yet resolute tone, the claims and powers of the weaker 
party. 

The present financial condition of our State, as well as the 
intrinsic importance of the subject, will, I am sure, justify me in 
bestowing, at this time, a passing notice on a claim often preferred 
by Ohio, with many other States in the Union, the adjustment of 
which, though at one time on the point of completion, still remains 
a subject open for the consideration and final action of Congress. 

Several years ago Congress, by very full majorities in both 
branches, passed an act providing for distributing the moneys arising 
from the sale of the public lands among the States. This act was 
predicated upon the proposition that the public lands were held by 
Congress in trust; that the objects of the trust were specified in the 
deeds of cession comprehending these lands ; that these deeds of ces- 
sion were compacts ; that the parties to these compacts had agreed 
that the lands so ceded should be sold by the General Government, 
and the moneys arising from the sale should be appropriated to the 
payment of the then national debt, and then the remainder should be 
distributed among the several States of the Union in a specified pro- 
portion. At the time of the passage of this bill, the national debt 
was entirely extinguished, and it was believed by Congress that the 
contingency had occured upon which the distribution among the 
States should commence. This argument, derived from the notion 
of a compact embracing the subject-matter of the bill, did not com- 
prehend that portion of the public domain embraced within the pur- 
chase of Louisiana and Florida, ceded directly to the General Gov- 
ernment by France and Spain respectively. 

The propriety of subjecting this last class to the principle of dis- 
tribution was founded on a variety of considerations. It was 
believed by many, whose opinions are entitled to great considera- 
tion, that the public domain was not properly, nor ever should be, 
considered a source of revenue to the national treasury. A belief 
then prevailed, to such an extent as to amount to almost univer- 
sal admission, that under any properly-adjusted system of impost 
duties on foreign goods, the moneys arising from that source 
would be always equal to the wants of the General Government in 
time of peace, while those wants should be limited by that strict 
economy and republican simplicity which should always characterize 
the institutions of a free people. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 103 

It would seem that the justice and propriety of conceding this 
claim to the States, should not now be a question. By the passage 
of the act to which I refer, Congress, the proper trustees of the 
fund, and the only legitimate guardians of the national treasury, has 
acknowledged the right, and given its sanction to the expediency of 
the measure The reason, and the only reason, why we are not 
at this moment in the enjoyment of our proportion of this rich fund, 
is to be found in the fact that the President, then in the executive 
chair, refused his assent to the bill for that purpose, thus, by the will 
of one man, nullifying the combined resolves of the representatives 
of both the people and the States. It is a singular fact, and worthy 
our attention, as illustrating the operation of the veto power of the 
President, and the influence it gives to the opinion of one man over 
the opinions of the many, that a majority of the sovereign States of 
the Union have, at various times, insisted on the distribution of this 
fund as a matter of policy, and many of them as a matter of positive 
right, and Congress have in pursuance of this undoubted expression 
of the wishes of the States and people, enacted a law, and yet, 
by the simple interposition of the will of one other branch of the 
Government, the will and power of the people and the States are 
rendered of no effect. 

Neither duty nor inclination invite me to bring to your notice 
all those subjects to which your attention has been called by my pred- 
ecessor in the proper discharge of his duties ; yet, in the present 
condition of our affairs as a State, and in view of the onerous taxa- 
tion, which must continue for some time to press heavily on the peo- 
ple, I have thought it my imperative duty, at the earliest proper 
moment, to solicit your attention to this subject. 

It is scarcely possible to suggest an idea touching the proper 
revenues of the State, or our prospects as a people, without associa- 
ting with these, in our thoughts, the condition of that currency 
which is the measure of value to all property and labor, and which, 
therefore, may be considered as one of the indispensable elements of 
a social state of existence. Wherever society has advanced to the 
point where there is such a division of labor, as that the products of 
one become necessary to another, there some representative of the 
value of such exchangeable commodities has been invented. As 
any community advances in population, and multiplies the variety 
and quantity of its productions, this representative of value also 



104 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

increases in amount, so as to insure a ready and convenient transfer 
of the labor of one portion to another, without the slow and, in 
many instances, impracticable process of barter between the two. 
Wherever a thriving and industrious community, with ample means 
to apply its labor to future acquisitions, has been found, there the 
proceeds of that labor in the future have supplied the place of this 
medium of exchange, in the form of credit, and this last has, by 
'experience, been found in general so safe that in governments where 
a stable order of things prevail, and the rights of the citizens are 
well protected, it has obtained universal prevalence. Among the 
inventions of nations most commercial, and farthest advanced in civ- 
ilization, to supply this medium of trade, banks of circulation, as 
modern institutions of that sort are called, have borne a conspicuous 
part. After the experience of hundreds of years, since their first 
appearance, they still survive, and may be said, at this time, to be 
more prevalent than at any former period. So thoroughly have 
these institutions been wrought into the texture of the affairs of the 
world that they have, even in our country, been chartered and sus- 
tained by the common consent of those who differed widely on every 
other great question of public policy. It is not now, therefore, a 
question whether banks shall continue among us in Ohio, but only 
under what modifications and restrictions they shall be permitted to 
live. With three or four exceptions, the charters of all the banks 
in Ohio will expire in two years from this time. They have, I 
believe, at this time a debt due them, which, in the aggregate, 
amounts to about ten millions of dollars. If their charters are not 
to be renewed, then it is not merely the dictate of prudence, but the 
command of necessity, that they should cease to make further issues, 
and by every proper means endeavor to collect their debts, and close 
finally their entire business. Should the great curtailment, almost 
ruinous, which has taken place in the circulation of the banks of 
this State, within the last eighteen months, be followed by the collec- 
tion of the debts due the banks, while their capital remains unem- 
ployed, it must produce a state of things in this country which has 
never been paralleled by any of those contingencies in trade, 
or unusual expansions and contractions in banking, which in former 
times, we have had occasion to deplore. With the present Legisla- 
ture it remains to determine whether the permanent interests of the 
State are to be promoted by encountering such a crisis. 

As the establishment of some permanent system of banking in 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 105 

this State devolves on the Legislature, and as that responsibility and 
labor must be encountered now, and as the subject is one of such 
prevading and deep moment, I have thought that my duty would not 
be discharged without adding my recommendation to the universal 
expectation of the people that it should receive your early and most 
anxious consideration. I am aware that the subject has been and is 
considered one of great difficulty in theory, and hazardous in 
practice. 

If we analyze all the objections to banks, as instruments for fur- 
nishing a currency, it will be found that they resolve themselves 
mainly into two, which are said in practice to be the natural results 
of the system. 

In the first place, it is said that banks use the credit which their 
charters give them to extend the circulation of their paper; that, 
either from imprudent management or from fraudulent motives, they 
at times refuse to pay gold or silver for their notes ; that this depre- 
ciates the value of their paper, and to the extent, more or less, of 
such depreciation occasions a loss to the holders of their bills. That 
instances have occurred in the past history of banks to warrant this 
objection no one can deny. But it is not true that this has been 
either an invariable or general consequence of our system of bank- 
ing. The occurrences upon which this objection is founded have 
been occasional with chartered institutions, and not general. If we 
compare the losses sustained by the community, from the partial and 
total failures of incorporated banks to redeem their promises, with 
the failures and bankruptcies of individuals engaged in trade, to the 
same extent, we shall find the latter exceed those of the former class 
by an almost incalculable sum. 

If the community were deprived of that credit which is now 
furnished by banks, any one conversant with the enterprising spirit 
of our people will at once see that individuals and voluntary associa- 
tions would furnish that credit in other forms. It then becomes a 
question which of these two is safest to the laboring and pro- 
ducing classes? If this be the true question, and our experience is 
not utterly deceptive, its solution at once results in favor of incor- 
porated companies, guarded by every provision which the wisdom of 
the Legislature may suggest. 

The second objection to banks is, that they expand their circu- 
lation at one time to an unnatural extent, and thus raise the price of 
labor and property, and by a sudden withdrawal of that circulation, 



106 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

either from necessity or choice, reduce the value of both, thus, by- 
reducing the value of the debtor's means of payment, in effect aug- 
menting the amount of the creditor's demand against him. That 
this may be, and has been often done by banks, is certainly true; 
but that the same amount of credit in any other form, or a sudden 
influx of the precious metals, and its sudden efflux, would produce 
the same evils is equally true. Instances of the latter kind are num- 
erous, and too well known to justify me in recapitulating them here, 
in which banks had not the remotest influence, happening in coun- 
tries, too, where a metallic was the only currency. 

In those instances, however, in which banks have produced 
either of the evils complained of, it is worthy of consideration 
whether the fault lay in the institutions themselves or originated in 
an extraneous influence exerted upon them. In the notable instance 
of suspension of specie payments by the banks of England, in 1797, 
it is a well-known fact that an order of the King and Council given 
to the bank, produced it, and that it was continued by acts of Parli- 
ment, from time to time, till the year 1823, when, by the judicious 
arangements of the bank, it resumed payments without producing 
any derangement in the commerce of the country, or prejudice to 
the finances of the kingdom. The large issues, and consequent sus- 
pension of the banks in our country, v/hich took place from 1812 to 
1820, have been, with great justice, ascribed to the loans made by 
the Government of the banks, which were the only means of prose- 
cuting the war ; which, returning upon them at the close of the war, 
with a foreign demand for specie, with the failure in business at that 
time of many of their debtors, rendered suspension inevitable, and 
in many instances were followed by an ultimate close of business. 
Among the causes that produced the recent suspensions in 1837, the 
influence of the Government, though by no means intended, is nev- 
ertheless distinctly perceivable. The whole revenues of the General 
Government were deposited with them, under an injunction from the 
Treasury department, to use them as banking capital. A confidence 
in their strength, arising from this connection with the Government, 
natural enough, though, as the event proved, delusive, contributed 
greatly to those large issues prior to 1837, of which so much com- 
plaint has been made. The contractions, too, which have followed, 
producing the most disastrous effects upon the country, although to 
a great extent a necessary consequence of previous over-issues, were, 
nevertheless, hastened and pushed too rapidly forward by well-meant 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 107 

endeavors on the part of the Legislature to improve the currency. 
Surveying the past history of such institutions, and availing ourselves 
of a dispassionate view of our own errors, as well as theirs, we may 
hope that a faithful effort, at this time to estabhsh them on a firm and 
secure basis will be attended by happy results. To this end I have 
to suggest a brief outline of those plans which appear to embrace a 
preventive of the two great evils I have noticed — insolvency of the 
institutions and consequent loss to the community, and unnatural 
expansions and contractions of the currency. The first is a State 
Bank, with a convenient number of branches, at proper points in the 
State, with a capital of such amount as the business of the country 
would seem to require. Each branch to own its own stock as its 
own separate property ; but to receive its paper from a common 
source, and be subject to the control of a parent board chosen by 
the stockholders of all the branches. In this plan,, the whole capital 
employed in the State should be bound for the redemption of the 
notes of every branch, the parent board having power, under proper 
limitations, to control the business of all the branches. As the 
whole capital is to be pledged for the liabilities of each separate 
branch, a board representing the capital should have full power to 
protect it against the mismanagement of those for whose conduct in 
this scheme it is made ultimately responsible. In this plan, it is pro- 
posed to give the State a proportion of the stock, not exceeding 
one-fifth of the whole, which should be represented by a correspond- 
ing vote in the election of officers. The books of all the institution 
should be opened at all times to the inspection of the parent board, 
and subject also to the inspection, at any and all times, of the Legisla- 
ture, in such mode as it should direct. The amount of circulation 
at any and all of the branches to bear a proportion to their capital, 
to be fixed by the Legislature in the charter. It is especially desir- 
able that the charter should specify the cases, if any, on which a for- 
feiture of the charter should follow, and that the facts in such cases 
should be found by a trial, in proper form, in the judicial courts of 
the State. In this scheme, also, it would seem to be proper to make 
the notes of each branch receivable in payment of debts at every 
branch in the State. To withdraw from the directory all induce- 
ment to extravagant and injudicious issues, and to put an end to the 
practice, said to avail to some extent, of adopting improper methods 
to avoid the provision of law, which forbids the receipt of more 
than six per cent, per annum on loans, it should be provided, that 



108 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

the amount of dividends, when they exceed a given per cent, per 
annum, should be paid in the State Treasury. 

The second plan, which has been much the subject of discus- 
sion, and which would seem to be a great improvement on the exist- 
ing system, embraces the proposition of re-chartering so many of 
the present banks of the State as shall be thought necessary, and 
such of them only as on thorough examination shall be found to 
be in a sound and healthy condition. 

In this scheme it is proposed to compel all that shall receive 
charters to unite in the election of a Board of Control, each bank to 
be entitled to vote in proportion to its capital. This board, who 
may or may not hold stock in any bank, as the Legislature shall 
determine, to issue all paper, and to sign it by officers to be chosen 
by it; to receive reports from each bank at stated periods, embrac- 
ing all its transactions, verified by the oaths of its officers. It 
is proposed, also, to vest the board with power to examine into 
the affairs of all the banks at stated periods, to be fixed by law, and 
oftener, if they deem it necessary, and to close the business of any 
bank when, in its judgment, such bank had conducted its business in 
such manner as to render it unsafe to permit its further continuance, 
and in all such cases the assets of such bank should be transferred 
to the board, for the purpose of liquidating all claims outstanding 
against it. 

In this plan it is also proposed to make the capital of each bank, 
and all of them who shall accept of charters, liable for the debts of 
every other bank, and to compel them to receive the notes of each 
other at all times in the payment of debts, and to redeem each its 
proper proportion of the notes of any other that may suspend specie 
payment, or be closed by the Board of Control. 

It would also be a salutary provision in this scheme to limit the 
dividends to stockholders, and bring into the State Treasury all the 
profits arising from the operations of the banks above such limita- 
tion, and also to limit in the charter the amount of circulation as 
compared with the capital of the several banks. 

I have, as it must be obvious, only thought it necessary to 
sketch an outline of some of the most prominent features of the 
scheme proposed. I have been impelled at this, as to some it may 
seem, unusual time to bring them to the view of the Legislature, 
as the loud call of the people of the State summons it to immediate 
action of some sort upon this all-important subject. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 10^ 

In either of the plans which are here suggested it is beHeved 
sufficient guards are provided against over-issues, leading to danger- 
ous expansions of the currency, while a capital varying from six to 
ten millions of dollars, with all the property of the banks, are 
pledged as a perpetual security to the holders of the paper of every 
bank embraced in the scheme. It is undoubtedly proper that the 
Legislature should reserve the power to inspect the books and exam- 
ine into the affairs of the banks, by such agents as they may from 
time to time select, and that the Board of Control should make an 
annual report to the Legislature, embracing a full statement of the 
business and condition of the banks under its supervision. It is 
important in this, as in every other charter, which creates a compact 
between the State and its citizens, that those acts which should work 
a forfeiture of the corporate powers granted, should be specifically 
named, and the mode of judicating such forfeiture clearly pointed 
out. 

It is believed that the establishment of the banking capital of 
the State on a permanent and secure basis might be the means of 
great occasional relief in the future prosecution of our public works. 
The want of funds for this purpose, arising from the temporary 
derangement of the money market abroad, could be supplied by the 
banks of our own State, were they assured of the further continu- 
ance of their charters on proper principles. 

The losses which have been sustained by contractors and labor- 
ers, at times occasioned by a failure of the State to make punctual 
and frequent payments, might in such cases be avoided. They 
might be m.ade useful to the State in this way, in enabling it to ful- 
fill, as it always should with rigid precision, its compacts with both 
its foreign and domestic creditors, an object which, it is hoped, 
will never be lost sight of by any who may be charged with the prer 
servation of the character and honor of the State. The high repu- 
tation which our stocks have maintained in the markets of the world 
has been earned by a scrupulous fidelity in complying with our con- 
tracts. The public improvements of the State, those enduring mon- 
uments of her enterprise, are the fruits of that character. That 
faith-keeping principle which shrinks with abhorrence from the idea 
of a broken promise, is alike the offspring of the pure morality of a 
Christian people, and that lofty public honor which is a prominent 
characteristic of our republican institutions. Whatever theoretical 
speculators upon the nature of legislative compacts may argue, he 



110 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

has been but a superficial observer of the people of Ohio who does 
not know that their tax-payers would gladly incur taxes fifty fold 
more burdensome than the present rather than endure for a day the 
deep disgrace which attaches to broken promises and violated public 
faith. Such an idea is the less tolerable in Western American, 
because of its almost boundless resources, and the constantly 
increasing energy and numbers of its people. 

Our present position as a member of the Union, compared 
with the past, cannot fail to awaken in the bosoms of our citizens 
proud and gratifying reflections. Our state occupies a commanding 
position in the great valley west of the Alleghany mountains ; a val- 
ley which, by the estimates of those well informed, contains a 
greater quantity of productive soil than is to be found in one body 
elsewhere on the surface of the globe. Though many parts of Ohio 
present to the eye of a Western American what seems to him a 
crowded population, yet it is certain that when compared with its 
capacity to sustain and feed its people, no portion of our territory has 
as yet been filled. If we glance our eyes over the statistics of other 
parts of the world, not more fruitful in whatever contributes to the 
sustenance of a dense population, and see to what extent the produc- 
tive powers of the earth may be carried, where population has long 
pressed upon subsistence, we shall find that any portion of Ohio 
compared with such is as yet little better than an untenanted and 
uncultivated waste. Looking forward to the time when the yet un- 
occupied agricultural and manufacturing powers of the State shall be 
fully developed, and taking our past progress as a guide to the fut- 
ure, we may, without egotism, indulge proud hopes of the ultimate 
destinies of the State. When we entered upon a State government in 
the year 1802, our population numbered sixty thousand. Now, 
after a lapse of thirty-eight years, we count a million and a half 
within our borders. Then we were a few scattered settlements, 
trembling in the presence of the lately subdued Indian tribes that 
still hovered on our frontier, and were entitled to but one representa- 
tive in the popular branch of Congress ; now we rank third in num- 
bers among the twenty-six States of the Union, and have a larger 
share of power in the Legislature of the Nation than many of the 
oldest States, whose settlements began two hundred years before the 
white man built his first cabin within the limits of the State. 

Through the valley lying between the Rocky Mountains on one 
side, and the Alleghany range on the other, following the course of 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. Ill 

the Mississippi, Ohio, and Alleghany rivers, we have an uninter- 
rupted steamboat navigation of twenty-four hundred miles in length. 
This great channel of commerce on one side, and the lakes of the 
north on the other, intersected by canals, roads, and rivers, with a 
rich soil and healthful climate, while they account for our past 
history, furnish certain and most cheering augury of our future 
progress. 

The direction which shall be given to that future, under our 
Constitution, mainly depends upon the legislative department. To 
subject to useful purposes all the physical resources of the State, and 
through these to insure the great ends of our existence, the moral 
and intellectual improvement for all the people, to the highest at- 
tainable point ; these are the great objects of legislative regard. To 
the Legislature belongs the lofty glories that await a wise exertion 
of that power, and on it devolves, also, the fearful responsibilities 
which its high position imposes. 

Fully assured that your deliberations will all aim to advance the 
interests, and secure the happiness of our common constituents, as it 
has become my duty, so shall it be my greatest pleasure, within my 
proper sphere, to extend a most hearty co-operation. 



MASONIC ORATION. 



DELIVERED AT HAMILTON, OHIO, JUNE 24, 1826. 



Fellow-citizens and Brethren: 

The pleasure which I should feel in having been distinguished 
by your confidence on this interesting occasion, is much impaired by 
the humiliating conviction that I shall not do justice to your hum- 
blest expectations. The particular cause of this painful embarrass- 
ment must be obvious to that portion of this numerous assembly, 
which belongs to the Masonic family. The anniversary which has 
called us together has been celebrated by us for many centuries 
past with sacred and undisturbed punctuality. You will therefore at 
once perceive, that all the topics which are naturally suggested by 
the occasion have been essayed and exhausted by the highest order 
of mind which a succession of ages could produce. The path pre- 
scribed to me is not only strewed with the fairest flowers of speech, 
but it is cultivated and adorned on every side with the rich creations 
of the most exalted intelligence. Thus situated, the conspicuous 
position to which I have been called by the kind partiality of my 
brethren would be appalling indeed were I in the presence of an 
audience unacquainted with my pursuits in life, and my humble pre- 
tensions in public declamatory address. To these considerations I 
feel it due myself to add that my professional engagements, for sev- 
eral months past, have been such as to preclude even the possibility 
of presenting you with any production, however brief, characterized 
by study and preparation. These remarks are not submitted from 
any servile fear of your criticism, for I have not the vanity to believe 
that the brief and undigested observations I shall make will be 
deemed of sufficient importance to render them the subject of either 
censure or applause ; but they are offered in justice to the fraternity 

whose humble organ I am, that you may not form a hasty judgment 

(112) 



MASONIC ORATION. 113 

of Freemasonry from what you may chance to hear from me under 
circumstances so unfavorable to a fair development of her principles. 
There are doubtless many present who would be gratified to know 
the particular reasons which induce us to adhere with such rigid 
exactitude to the celebration of this day as a Masonic festival. 
This natural curiosity may be gratified by a few obvious considera- 
tions. 

We have assembled in accordance with a very ancient usage 
among Masons, to offer our public homage to the memory of St. 
John the Baptist. The propriety of perpetuating the memory of 
striking events and illustrious men by anniversary celebrations, can 
be inferred from the practice of every nation in every age of the 
world. In the early stages of human association other means were 
employed to insure this noble and beneficent purpose. A pyramid 
of stone, a misshapen tomb, with traditional narratives transmitted 
by hereditary piety from age to age, served to inform the unlettered 
savage of the gratitude he owed to the hero of his tribe, or the law- 
giver of his nation, whose memory otherwise the ever-rolling current 
of years had overwhelmed in oblivion. The Romans wisely pre- 
served in consecrated temples lasting memorials of the founder of 
their empire, and the enlightened Greeks, availing themselves of the 
art of sculpture, perpetuated in marble the sages and heroes of their 
race. Thus did the early benefactors of nations live for centuries 
beyond their natural existence, and continue to make salutary im- 
pressions upon succeeding times. Modern anniversaries, sacred to 
the memory of those whose virtues have created eras in the history 
of man, have this end in view, and subserve in a higher degree the 
same valuable design. 

For these reasons, as often as the wheels of time roll on the 
nativity of John the Baptist, as Masons we are taught to separate 
our thoughts from the cares that waylay all our paths through this 
world, and consecrate our reflections upon the exalted qualities 
which characterized this extraordinary man. He, our traditions 
inform us, was an active and firm adherent to the grand tenets of 
Masonry, and our Masonic injunctions require us to revere him in 
the double character of an inspired servant of the most high God, 
and a devoted supporter and patron of our ancient institution. By 
this custom — consecrated by time, approved by reason, and sanc- 
tioned by the holiest aspirations of the heart — we hope to superin- 
duce in our lives and conduct a closer approximation to the virtues 
9 



] 14 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

which marked the character of our patron saint, in whose Hfe we are 
taught to beUeve the pristine beauties of brotherly love, relief, and 
truth shone forth in effulgence unfading, without a cloud to shadow 
their radiance from an admiring world. The most careless observer 
will see at a glance the striking difference between this and almost 
every other public festival known to the present age. We do not 
assemble to immortalize the achievements of a conquering general, 
or to rejoice at a fortunate victory over the contending foe. We 
meet to commemorate the reign of peace, and cherish those retiring 
virtues of the heart that shun the glare of public show, and extend 
to the afflicted and obscure their unseen beneficence. Hence, in our 
public exhibitions there is nothing to excite the strong emotions of 
the soul. The wild tornado that levels whole cities with the ground, 
and whelms your navies in the devouring seas, impresses the mind 
with a horror that time can seldom efface ; while the common air that 
keeps the mysterious machine of life in motion, and is everywhere 
diffusing health abroad, scarcely excites a passing thought. The 
lofty mountains, whose lone summit is robed in volcanic flame, 
arrests the imagination with an intensity that no object, however 
pleasing, can divert; while the extended plain, whose humble shrubs 
and flowers and fruits bring abundance and happiness to all around, 
is seen without emotion, and passed by without a single reflection. 
But in a much more important particular is this anniversary distin- 
guished from those of a political or purely national character. If 
we assemble to commemorate the achievements of a general, who 
by slaughter and conquest has contributed to national renown, the 
cannon's roar and the victor's trophy necessarily associate with them 
the memory of embattled fields and conflicting hosts. Is the ban- 
ner of victory displayed? Imagination sees in its train "famine, 
sword and fire crouch for employment." Do we gaze with rapture 
upon the laurel that encircles the conqueror's brow? The noble 
ecstacy is repressed when fancy beholds it crimsoned over with the 
blood of the slain, and grasping w^ith its tendrils the cypress that 
weeps over the vanquished, perhaps the generous foe. Even on our 
own national festival, whose annual return reminds us of our happy 
deliverance from a foreign yoke, the angry remembrance of a hated 
and vindictive foe mingles in our most fervid gratitude to heaven, 
and stains it with the black hue of revenge. Far different are the 
feelings which the recollections of this day inspire. The emblems 
displayed by us speak only of the peaceful triumphs of virtue over 



MASONIC ORATION. 115 

vice, and indicate a charity and good will as wide in their desires and 
action as the globe itself. Delineated on the clothing we wear is the 
temple of Masonry. Behold its ample dimensions ! Its indestruct- 
ible foundations extend from the north to the south, and sweep from 
the farthest east to the remotest west. It tells you that her 
expanded portals are open to receive the just and upright in heart 
of every tongue and clime ; that the arms of Masonic charity inclose 
within their fostering embrace the entire family of man. Turn your 
eye to* that star — it is emblematical of that which guided the wise 
men of the east to the birth-place of the Redeemer. Contemplate 
for a moment those parallel lines — one of these represents St. John 
the Baptist, the harbinger of the long-promised Messiah, 

How richly instructive the reflections, and how sweetly accord- 
ant to the impulses of Christian piety are the emotions which these 
exhibitions are calculated to wake up in the mind and heart ; the 
obstreperous note of the battle-song is still, the shout of victory is 
hushed, while the soul, attuned to harmony and peace, breaks forth 
in the cherub strain that announced the advent of the Savior, 
"Peace on earth and good-will toward men," Another striking char- 
acteristic of our symbols is the ancient date to which they evidently 
refer. They remind us that Masonry existed in times long gone by. 
That temple would indeed seem to assert the origin of Masonry to 
be coeval at least with Solomon, its illustrious builder. 

Upon this subject it may be observed that the time when Masonry 
began to exist is a matter of small importance when compared with 
its true tendency and design. Yet since this is a point upon which 
there is much curious speculation among men, and about which 
there is some contradiction and more conjecture among those distin- 
guished for their knowledge of ancient history, I will, in passing, sub- 
mit to your consideration some facts which bear upon this much con- 
tested point. In doing this, I shall unavoidably notice some things 
which will show the moral character of Masonry, and the use which 
a mysterious providence, in ancient times, has made of our order. 
History is not silent in regard to the ancient existence of Masonry, 
though from the very nature of this society, its identity could not 
be distinctly traced along the track of time and made public by his- 
torical record. 

It has never been denied that Masons are to found in almost 
every country which has been subjected to modern discovery. 
Nations who have had no intercourse whatever with each other, dif- 



116 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

fering in language, manners and laws, have seen their subjects meet 
for the first time and recognize each other to be members of the 
Masonic fraternity. In every quarter of the globe, however, the 
grand features of Masonry are found to be the same. This is true 
in regard to tribes and countries where letters and the arts are 
extinct, and where commerce and modern improvement have as yet 
made no impression upon the national character. This remarkable 
coincidence, which, I believe, is admitted by all remains to be 
accounted for. To this end let me direct your attention to the very 
few facts which I am at liberty here to state. We are informed 
by a writer whose intelligence and veracity has never been questioned 
that most of the Tyrians who had been employed by Solomon in the 
erection of the temple at Jerusalem, after the completion of the 
building, returned to their native country. We learn from the same 
source that about this time many of the Jews who had been engaged 
in building the temple migrated to Phoenicia, a country of which 
Tyre was at that time the principal city. This Jewish colony, for 
some cause left unexplained by the historian, was oppressed by its 
neighbors, and became weary of its possessions. In these difficul- 
ties they flew to their friends for relief The Tyrains who had 
labored with them upon the temple at Jerusalem, mindful of their 
sacred obligations, which seven years' mutual toil and the interchange 
of all the kindly offices which their fraternal connection had induced, 
furnished their Jewish brethren with ships and provision. They 
took their departure for a foreign land. If they, as workmen at the 
temple, had been invested with secrets not known to others, there 
can be no doubt but they preserved and carried them wherever they 
went. They left Tyre, passed the straits of Hercules and finally set- 
tled in Spain. They bade a final adieu, not only to their adopted 
country, but doubtless they bade a last farewell to the land promised 
as a heritage to them and their posterity forever. In this mournful 
pilgrimage, if they possessed the secrets, there can be no doubt but 
they carried with them the sacred symbols of Masonry, and in the 
land of the Gentile erected the altar and lighted up the lights of the 
Order. Strabo, whose general accuracy is surpassed by no author 
of his time, informs us that about one hundred and ninety years 
after the Trojan war, which would be about fifteen years after the 
completion of the temple, a colony of Jews from Palestine made a 
permanent settlement on the western coast of Africa. From these 
three points we follow the march of Masonry throughout the world. 



MASONIC ORATION. 117 

In all the countries settled by emigration from these, or connected 
with them by alliance and commerce, Masonry is found, her signs 
the same, her mystic word the same in all. The most rational con- 
clusion from these premises would seem to be this, that Masonry 
had its origin from some common source far back in the annals of 
the world, and from the ceremonies and emblems of the Order, that 
source could be no other than Solomon, the king of Isreal. It is 
also clear that Masonry began in the erection of the temple at Jeru- 
salem, that temple designed to preserve the unadulterated worship 
of the only living and true God. These remarks can only apply to 
the six first degrees of Masonry. Let us ascend to the seventh, and 
see if there is nothing in the "Royal Arch" to show that this last 
had its origin with those great and good men who built the second 
temple upon Mount Moriah. There are a variety of facts derived 
from sacred history all tending to show that from the death of Solo- 
mon to the completion of the second temple, the Pentateuch, or 
five books of Moses, were very rare, and that at one time, at least, 
they were believed to be entirely lost. Josiah, a prince remarkable 
in history for having restored the true worship of God in Jerusalem, 
reigned in Judea about fifty years before the Babylonish captivity. 
During his reign it is stated as a remarkable fact, "that the book of 
the law was found by Hilkiah the Priest in the house of the Lord." 
That this was the only copy then known to be extant is rendered 
certain from the joy expressed by the King at the event. We are 
told that when it was read to the good King, "he rent his gar- 
ments," such were his transports in knowing that the sacred legacy 
of Moses was still in possession of his divided and afflicted people. 
From this time until the days of Ezra, a period of about one hun- 
dred and seventy years, we hear nothing in sacred history of the 
books of the laws. The ark, it is well known, with the law and the 
covenant, always remained in the temple. As these were objects of 
sacred regard and religious veneration with the Jews, so, doubtless, 
they would have been most valued by Nebuchadnezzar, had they 
fallen into his hands when Jerusalem was sacked and the temple 
destroyed. Had they been captured by him and carried with the 
consecrated vessels to Babylon, and there preserved, so important a 
fact could not have been overlooked by the sacred historian. But, 
from the silence of history, all doubtless supposed the law and the 
testimony to be forever lost ; such, however, was not the design of 



118 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

Heaven. Where, then, do we next hear (after a silence of one 
hundred and seventy years) of this sacred deposit. 

The learned and proverbially accurate Dr. Prideaux assures us, 
that after the second temple was finished, there existed an associa- 
tion of men at Jerusalem who had certain secrets unknown to the 
rest of the world ; that Ezra was the chief of this society, and that 
he was, with his brethren, many years engaged in transcribing the 
books of the law. Another historian, speaking of the same society, 
tells us that the Hebrew name by which they were known signifies 
tradition. These facts would seem to establish two important partic- 
ulars ; first, that there was then extant but one copy of the book of 
the law, it being an object of such great importance to increase the 
number; and secondly, that Ezra and his brethren who were engaged 
in this sacred duty, having secrets unknown to the world, and a 
name corresponding with a grand feature of Masonry, "Tradition," 
were Royal Arch Masons and practiced the rights of the "sublime 
degree." From these facts it would appear that Masonry, reviled 
by ignorance and persecuted by prejudice, was at this time the hum- 
ble means employed by divine providence to preserve the only reve- 
lation as yet received from God. 

The sacred temple had stood for four hundred years, the only 
altar not contaminated with idolatrous sacrifice. There within the 
"Holy of Holies" the law and testimony in the heaven-appointed 
custody of the Levite had safely reposed ; but the conquering Chal- 
dean came, Jerusalem is laid waste, the lofty columns, the porticoes 
and brazen pillars of the temple yield to the devouring flames, and 
sink in undistinguished ruin ; the consecrated vessels are borne away 
in triumph, and the house of Israel is carried captive to Babylon. 
The law and the testimony are heard of no more, the feast and the 
sacrifice, the priest and the alter, are alike forbidden and hateful to 
the heathen oppressor ; the captive Jew hung his harp on the willows 
and wept by the streams of Babylon. When they believed the ark 
and the covenant between God and his chosen people were forever 
lost, no wonder they mourned for the desolation of the city of David 
and exclaimed: "When I forget thee, oh Jerusalem, may my right 
hand forget her cunning ! " After his long captivity, when he again 
returned to the land of his fathers, how did the soul of the pious 
Jew glow with gratitude to those who had preserved the law and the 
testimony from the devastation of war, and the ruin of time, and 
again deposited the sacred book in the house of the Lord. When 



MASONIC ORATION. 119 

we take into consideration only the few meager facts, thus shghtly 
sketched, we should suppose the pious Christian would pause before 
he* denounces this unoffending Order, to which the best men have 
adhered for many ages past ; surely the polite scholar and the learned 
antiquarian should hesitate before they join a censorious and ill-judg- 
ing world in the assertion that Masonry is the offspring of a barbar- 
ous age, that it is calculated for no great attaintment, and has sub- 
served no valuable design. 

If the ancient history of our Order is illustrious for having par- 
ticipated in great events, it will be found that its career in modern 
times is not less so for having furnished a remedy for evils which 
could find no redress in any other of the institutions of man. A 
very brief retrospect of the history of our afflicted race will show 
a necessity for the establishment of a society having a sublime and 
pure morality for its ethics, and a scheme of benevolence toward 
man, enforced by penalties distant from the common obligations of 
social or municipal law. The earliest records of man are replete 
with the history of his cruelties and crimes. He was indeed created 
upright in the image of his God, but alas, how brief is the season 
of his continuance in his primitive state. Scarcely had the first 
family taken its social form when the blood of Abel ascended to the 
skies, a melancholy witness to the apostasy of man, and a sure 
presage of his future career. Hence the faithful historian, from 
Adam to the deluge, and from thence to our own times, speaks only 
of tribe warring with tribe, power conflicting with power, till some 
warlike butcher, more fortunate than his peers, has brought contend- 
ing communities and tribes within the grasp of his sole domination 
and compressed them into one bloody mass, subdued and inert, upon 
which he exerts his uncontrolled dominion. Religion, it is true, 
held forth her persuasives to virtue, but in the estimation of thought- 
less men, her rewards were valueless, because they were postponed 
beyond the term of his mortal career. Her dreadful penalties 
appalled him not, because they were to fall on him hereafter, and he 
hoped by amendment to avoid their infliction. The destines of the 
world seemed to be committed to man, and he used his power only 
for the purposes of destruction. War, cruel and relentless war, in 
every age has deluged the peaceful earth with the blood of its inhab- 
itants, and imbittered it with their tears. Government and jurispru- 
dence, it is true, in modern times, have done much for suffering 
humanity. But, so various are the characters of men, so complex 



120 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

the structure of society, and so diversified the crimes with which it 
is afflicted, that the wisest statesmen have given up the task as hope- 
less, and submit patiently to endure evils which their utmost sagacity 
cannot prevent. Treachery in friendship, hypocrisy and deceit, and 
ingratitude , that sin denounced by savage and civilized man, must 
still go unpunished. In despite of all political regulation, power 
will sometimes accumulate in the hands of the few, and the weak are 
subjected to its licentious sway. We still see oppression in some 
shape pursuing its victim with the eye of the eagle and the vulture's 
appetite. The philanthropist, with all his ardent desires for the hap- 
piness of his species, looks on in hopeless impotence. Here 
Masonry interposes ; power, wealth, and all the adventitious aids of 
fortune create no preference in her choice ; she receives the sufferer 
within her walls and throws the aegis of her protection around him. 
If the purple of majesty, as has been the case, finds its way into the 
lodge, the monarch sees and confesses that his regal diadem is of no 
more value than the sordid rags of the beggar. Here all meet on 
the level of perfect equality. The brow of power unbends its 
haughty curve at the well-known sign, and the frown of anger gives 
place to the smile of conciliation at the "mystic word." There all 
are taught that stern perseverance in upright and virtuous life, can 
only give pre-eminence to one man above another. Thus instructed 
and qualified,, the Mason goes forth from the lodge with new motives 
and added obligations to rectitude of life. However humble and 
unambitious his fortune or name, he goes forth with confidence. If 
he is "just and true," that confidence is never deceived. The fidel- 
ity of Masonry is universal, he shall not be forsaken. To whatever 
clime he wanders it is still the same, the language of Masonry is 
universal, he shall be recognized as a brother. No matter how 
adverse his fate, the charity of Masonry is universal, if worthy, he 
shall be relieved. Shall I be told that these are the fanciful theories 
of a creed that wastes itself in idle boast and empty show? Was 
the immortal Warren, the fated martyr of Bunker Hill, the patron 
of hypocritical profession ? Could the mighty soul of Washington 
stoop to hypocrisy, or be delighted with idle pageantry? Could the 
philosophic Franklin, who encountered the tempest and disarmed it 
of its bolt, be pleased or satisfied with boastful pretentions and 
ceremonious frivolity? Surely there is no American so base as will 
not answer no. Yet Washington, Franklin and Warren bore their 
united testimony in our favor, by both profession and practice, while 



MASONIC ORATION. 121 

they lived. These three undying names, while they confer immortal 
renown upon the American character, shed also a halo of glory 
round the alter of Masonry, where they were often pleased as Grand 
Masters to preside. These things I have thought it my duty to say 
of a society of which many of your friends are members, not as a 
formal defense, but that Masonry may be judged by what she truly 
is, and not by ignorant assertion, or malicious conjecture. 

Permit me now, my brethren, in a few words, to solicit your 
attention to some of the important duties which our principles 
teach, and our penalties enforce. You have come together for the 
avowed purpose of offering your public testimonial to the virtues of 
one whose life, in our Masonic instruction, is constantly held forth as 
a model for every Mason's imitation. Temperance, that Masonic 
virtue so often neglected, and so solemnly impressed upon us in our 
lectures, was the most striking feature in the character of John the 
Baptist. Seeing, with prophetic vision, the important station he 
was to occupy in accomplishing the designs of his Master, he pos- 
sessed a moral courage that raised him to an elevation of soul equal 
to the task. He appeared in the world among a people adverse in 
their habits to the abstinent, self-denying life he lived. The long 
and well-established reign of Polytheism brought the united religions 
of Rome, and all her tributary states, to oppose the peculiar doc- 
trines he was commissioned to usher into the world. Rome herself, 
at this period, was rapidly marching to the full maturity of national 
sin. The laurels that bloomed round the tombs of her early heroes 
were forgotten for the inhuman sports of gladiators and frivolous 
public shows. Her triumphal arches began to droop, and the stern 
integrity which characterized her early days had now expired in the 
sensual delights of the bath. Yet, in the midst of these allurements 
to luxury, his food was locusts and wild honey. Surrounded with 
obstinate bigotry, at the peril of his life, he marched with steady 
and fearless step to the fulfillment of his master's will, and when the 
arm of power was outstretched for his destruction, he boldly pro- 
claimed the wickedness of Herod, and foretold, in the startled ear of 
the tyrant, the coming vengeance of God. Chains and imprison- 
ment had no terrors for him, for integrity of heart brought uncon- 
querable fortitude to his aid, and when his work was finished, dis- 
daining that sycophantic spirit that might suggest a compromise with 
his oppressor, with dauntless confidence he met the blow, and, Hke 
one of the Grand Masters of our Order, he sealed his fidelity with 



122 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN, 

his blood. Had I the tongue of angels, still in this mirror you shall 
see more than words could possibly portray. Yet once more, my 
brethren, in the pure spirit of brotherly love, let me solicit your atten- 
tion to that temperance so conspicuous in the character of this holy 
man, that it is the first feature his biograper has sketched. No vice 
within our observation has so much degraded the character of 
Masonry, none has made such wide-spread ravage in the world, as 
the odious sin of intemperance ; it carries its annual thousands to an 
untimely grave, and an unprepared reckoning with their final Judge. 
What renders it fearful beyond most evil habits, is the strange insen- 
sibility with which it invests its unhappy votary. The miserable vic- 
tim of confirmed intemperance is cursed with a fatuity unassailable 
by reason or admonition. He deliberately prepares himself for the 
sacrifice, binds himself to the altar, and himself applies the fatal 
instrument of immolation. At this awful period every vice follows 
in its train, reason is bewildered, conscience is benumbed, the heart 
debased, and the noblest work of God sinks below the level of a 
brute. This fatal habit is often, nay, it is usually, the offspring of 
idleness and inattention to the business of our proper vocation, and 
that too frequently in the season of youth. Strange, unaccountable 
stupidity! At that happy period when the intellectual powers are 
expanding, and the entire character beginning to assume a permanent 
form — in that delightful season of improvement, emulation and hope 
— how many waste the precious years without one vigorous effort in 
any useful or valuable pursuit. Such take their downward course in 
life, barren of knowledge or virtuous habits, through a bleak and 
comfortless region of care, decrepitude and sorrow. Thus a whole 
lifetime is often passed over, thoughtful only of the present hour, 
till the brink of the yawning gulf is seen ; but then it is too late to 
retreat from the danger, and an age of careless, thoughtless inac- 
tivity is closed by a few hours of gloomy anxiety — of intense, inef- 
fable horror. This is not the fiction of imagination; it has been 
often realized and seen among us, where last of all it should be 
looked for, within the circle of Masonry. Nothing, I repeat it, has 
contributed so much to strengthen the common prejudice against 
Masonry, and impair its usefulness in the world, as the disorderly 
and vicious lives of some of its members. Wherever such are found 
among us, it is our first duty to apply all the correctives our princi- 
ples afford ; to whisper wholesome counsel into the ear, and, by 
every means in our power, impress truth upon the heart. 



MASONIC ORATION. 123 

If all these fail to revive the dying spark of virtue — to our- 
selves and the world we owe the solemn duty — they must be cast out 
from among us. Such can only serve to create discord in the tem- 
ple, and impede the labors of the true and worthy Mason. When 
we reflect on the many bland and beautiful persuasives to virtue 
which our ceremonies exhibit, and which our lectures unceasingly 
teach ; when we superadd to these those guards which furnish resist- 
ance to every approach of vice, it may fairly be assumed that none 
but a disposition fatally determined to wickedness could resist their 
conjoined impressions. But if, in despite of all endeavor, a brother 
continue incorrigible, "cut him down, why cumbereth he the 
ground! " 

When we shall have thus discharged our duty, Masonry shall 
arise and put on her beautiful garment; her doors then shall be 
thrown wide for the reception of the wise and faithful in heart of all 
the tribes and kindred of the earth, and be closed against the 
wicked, the faithless and the unworthy. Then may we confidently 
expect our reward. We shall have the gratitude of the destitute, 
whom we have cheered and fed; the prayers of the wayward, whom 
we have reclaimed ; the benedictions of the good of all the world, 
and the smiles of an approving conscience, that 

" Which nothing earthly gives or can destroy, 
The soul's calm sunshine and the heart-felt joy." 

There are a few present whom I recognize as worthy Knights, 
who have sat in council and convened in the Asylum. We should 
never forget this truth ; as we ascend in the mysteries of the Order, 
so in proportion are our obligations increased and the sphere of our 
action enlarged. That unbounded hospitality that greets and cheers 
the way-worn pilgrim of this world with pure benevolence, unsolic- 
ited and unbought; that courage and constancy which tread with 
untiring step the rugged road of virtue, and subdue each rising 
obstacle in their way ; that humility and patience which melt away 
the natural asperities of our imperfect nature, and endure without a 
murmur the "thousand ills of life;" that truth which is mighty 
above all things, which shall flourish in immortal green, when the 
heavens "shall depart as a scroll," these are the God-like attributes 
of your profession. The history of your Order though gloomy, 
nevertheless presents a grand exhibition of human nature. The sen- 
sation we feel in tracing it to its origin, though elevated and delight- 
ful, will still at times be tinged with melancholy reflection, rendered 



124 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

sublime, however, by the magnificence of the objects constantly in 
view. 

The hardy spirits who founded your Order and lighted up the 
sacred asylum in Palestine, were fired with zeal that no human effort 
could resist. They had visited that land consecrated by the advent 
of the Messiah. They stood upon the shores of Jordan that had 
seen the descent of the Baptismal dove. They sat down and sor- 
rowed upon those hills of Judea that had trembled at the miracles of 
a God. They saw with bitterness of heart the pious pilgrim spurned, 
robbed, murdered by the ruthless Turk. They beheld the stupid 
Mussulman exert a withering despotism over the inheritance of 
Jacob. They saw the mosque and minaret tower in impious grand- 
eur over the tomb of Christ, and the chosen habitation of Israel 
seemed to them cursed on account of the infidel possessor. The 
burning sun and the barren fig tree of holy writ were still there ; 
riven rocks and half-open sepulchers still announced the prodigies of 
the crucifixion ; but dried up rivers, scorched and barren fields spoke 
to them the course of heaven, and there the desert stretched out its 
burning arms in mute desolation, as if it had not dared to break the 
dead silence since the "Eternal uttered his voice." 

It was amid these grand and gloomy scenes that the founders of 
your Order called the council and assembled around the triangle. 
Charity and hospitality were their objects — a charity that stooped to 
the unfortunate, that sought after the miserable, that raised the 
bowed down, that clothed and fed the naked, famishing pilgrim, 
journeying under the fervid heat of a Syrian sun, to die at the 
Redeemer's shrine. These were the original characteristics of 
Knighthood, and though the scene of action is now changed, such 
are still its high and holy professions. To this high-toned moral 
feeling we are pledged by sacred obligations to conform our practice 
among men and with each other. ' Tis for ourselves to determine 
whether we shall profess principles which exalt and sublimate the 
soul above the sordid selfishness of groveling mortality, and at the 
same time cling to those vices that degrade, chill and brutalize all 
the generous aspirings of the heart. Surely it will not, cannot be ; 
honor, conscience and truth, "mighty above all things," forbid it. 

Lastly, my brethren, of every order and degree. If the duties 
of Masonry are of universal obligation, if they admit of no excep- 
tion, if they are to be performed by the Mason of every country, 
under circumstances however adverse, with what alacrity should we 



MASONIC ORATION. 125 

(who are cradled in liberty, and nursed in the lap of peace) go on 
to fulfill its benignant commands. How enviable this day is the lot 
of the American Mason, compared with the destiny of his brethren 
in other regions of the earth ! Here the Masonic lodge rears its 
humble columns in our cities, cottages and towns, fearless of danger 
from without, or treachery within its walls. When we go abroad on 
our festive days the unseen arm of our happy government protects 
us from insult or opposition. The "Star and stripe," the consecrated 
banner of freedom, is proud to wave its protecting folds over the 
lambskin of Masonry. But avert your eye for a moment from this 
"green and sunny spot," throw your anxious glance over Russia, 
Austria and Spain. Where is the humble Mason in these dreary 
realms to-day? Roused by the natal morning of his patron saint, 
does he repair with crowds of his brethren to the social lodge? No. 
With fearful step he steals silently from the busy haunts of men, and 
with a faithful few ascends the mountain-top, or retires to the darkest 
recess of some sequestered vale. If the ever-vigilant eye of oppres- 
sion pursue him there, a lingering death, "pangs that longest rack 
and latest kill," must be his fate; or exiled from home, he must seek 
in other lands a refuge from the grave : 

" Nor wife nor children more shall he behold, 
Nor friends, nor sacred home." 

How often have we hailed on these happy shores a Russian 
brother from the far Borysthenes, or from the bank of Guadalquiver, 
the Iberian exile, and heard them lisp in stranger accent the sad 
story of their wrongs. From these we hear that Masonry, emphati- 
cally peaceful and unoffending, is proscribed by the half-civilized 
"Autocrat of all the Russias. " There a jealous tyrant exerts his 
unceasing persecution, with every means which ingenuity, sharpened 
by malice, can invent, and with cruelty limited only by absolute 
power. In Spain, too, once the proud land of chivalry, the same 
misguided policy haunts every step of the Order. The stupid Ferdi- 
nand (whose regal honors serve only to degrade the fame of the 
once powerful Castilian house) dooms our temples to the flames, 
and for inculcating "charity toward all mankind," the Christian 
Mason dies upon the rack. Fell tyrant ! insatiate monster ! gorge 
thy ravening appetite with the harmless Mason's blood. Well hast 
thou waged exterminating war upon the brethren of him whose arm 
hurled the first fatal bolt at the throne of tyrants. It was the spirit 



126 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

and example of our Washington that rolled the retributive fires of 
revolution through thy affrighted dominions. But thy carnival shall 
be brief. The Architect of worlds has circumscribed the two Ameri- 
cas, and said, "here shall there be liberty and peace. " Six fair repub- 
lics, wrested from they ruthless dominion, announce that retributive 
justice is nigh thee ; the handwriting is seen upon thy walls ; the 
genius of desolation flaps her wing over thy palaces of pride, and 
expects her prey. 

Before I take leave of you, my brethren, let me again remind 
you of the vast debt of gratutude you owe to the Almighty disposer 
of human events for that you have been permitted to pass the jour- 
ney of life in this land and this age of the world. While the cloud 
of despotism throws its dun and troubled midnight over three quar- 
ters of the world, here we repose under the tranquil bowers of 
peace, while the blended beams of improved science, rational liberty 
and pure religion throw their cheerful radiance around. May we 
not justly exclaim with Israel of old, "the Lord hath brought us 
forth out of Egypt, with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm ; 
he hath brought us unto this place, and hath given us this land?" 
But, if we believe our Masonic instruction, we shall not indulge the 
gloomy conviction that our happy destiny shall always remain exclu- 
sive. Masonry teaches us that man is capable of endless improve- 
ment in knowledge and all the arts that adorn and glorify human 
■existence. That progression is evidently quickening its pace 
throughout the world with each revolving year. The signs of the 
times cannot be misunderstood. The onward tread of science and 
civil liberty cannot, will not, be stayed ; it is the progress of man to 
that state designed and decreed by Heaven ; it is the march of mind 
— what power shall withstand it? It may pause for awhile, in the 
midst of some violent shock, but it will resume its progress with still 
stronger and steadier step, till ignorance and subjection let go their 
hold upon every slave, and the scepter fall powerless from the grasp 
of the last tyrant upon the earth. Then shall that period arrive so 
long expected and so ardently prayed for. It shall then no longer 
be necessary to the existence of governments to consecrate the 
names and vices of kings ; but human happiness shall be the basis of 
all political association, and enlightened reason insure a cheerful 
acquiescence in necessary municipal rule. Then shall the eastern 
Indian cease to adore the sun ; the northern savage no longer shall 
seek his deity in the genius of darkness and storm ; the Hindoo shall 



MASONIC ORATION. 127 

forget to bow before Juggernaut, and the Abyssinian no more shall 
pour out his libation to the genius of the Nile, but the enlightened 
devotions of a world shall ascend to the true God. Then shall the 
"cap-stone" to the temple of human happiness "be brought forth 
with shouting and praise." 

In this great consummation human means must be employed ; 
ours, therefore, is not the part of inaction and sloth ; we are not to 
be indulged in folded hands and quiet sleep. However humble the 
effort, still that effort must be made — duty requires it, and her 
injunctions will not be disobeyed with impunity. If but one stone 
be prepared by each, it will contribute to the building, and rest 
assured, the laborer shall receive his reward. Let us then grasp the 
plumb in one hand and see that we stand erect before God and man, 
while with the mystic trowel in the other, we spread everywhere the 
cement of brotherly love. Then, when we shall all be leveled by 
death, and tyled in the grand lodge of eternity; when the "pass- 
word " shall be demanded for the last time, we may approach with 
some humble confidence and say, in language of the pious sacrifices 
of the first fruits, "I have brought away the hallowed things out of 
mine house and have given them to the Levite and stranger, unto 
the fatherless and the widow, according to all the commandments 
which thou hast commanded me, I have not transgressed thy com- 
mandments, neither have I forgotten them." 



ADDRESS OF WELCOME TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 



AT LEBANON, OHIO, NOVEMBER 7, 1843. 



In November, 1843, ex-President J. Q. Adams delivered the address at the laying 
of the corner stone of the Cincinnati Observatory on a hill near the city which was 
named in his honor, Mt. Adams. The citizens of Lebanon learned that the ex-Pres- 
ident on his journey to Cincinnati would reach their village at noon and remain over 
night. They made elaborate preparations for his reception, and selected ex-Governor 
Corwin to deliver the address of welcome. The exercises took place at the Baptist 
Church. The following are the remarks of Mr. Corwin: 

Mr. Adams: My neighbors, citizens of this town and the sur- 
rounding country, have devolved on me the very agreeable duty 
of greeting your arrival amongst them ; of tendering to you their 
admiration of your character, and the gratitude they owe you, for 
the many deeds of eminent patriotism that have distinguished your 
long, laborious and eventful life. 

Although personally unknown to them, the history of your life 
has been so interwoven with their interests and happiness as to ren- 
der your name familiar as a household word. Be assured, sir, that 
your fame is cherished with as much sincerity in this small village 
as it is at your home in Quincy. Your character as a scholar, an 
orator, a statesman, and patriot, is regarded with as much veneration 
in the Miami Valley as it is or can be on the banks of the Merrimac. 

Whilst we here claim to share in common with our fellow-citi- 
zens of the Union our portion of that true glory which you have 
bequeathed to the Republic, we feel that your present visit to the 
West has created between yourself and us relations of a more inti- 
mate character. 

At an advanced period of your life, in the midst of a public 
career, and at an inclement season of the year, you have encoun- 
tered the toil and peril of a long journey for our benefit and at our 
solicitation. It is this act, thus performed, which blends in the 

bosoms of the multitudes, that now surround you, mingled feelings of 

(128) 



ADDRESS OF WELCOME TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 129 

love for the man, gratitude to the philanthropist, lofty sentiments of 
respect for those remarkable intellectual endowments that have justly- 
established your rank amongst the iirst minds of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. You come to us not to spread discord, but to inculcate har- 
mony. You come from your distant home in the East to plant 
with your own hands the seeds of science and an improved philoso- 
phy in these Western ends of the earth. You come asking nothing 
from us, bringing much to us; like the sun in his course from east 
to west, you bring warmth to animate and light to cheer and guide 
us onward ; you come to this great, new and comparatively unculti- 
vated "seed field," spread out from the Alleghany to the Rocky 
mountains, to scatter abroad amongst us the gathered fruits of a long 
life of painful study; to give us the benefit of that mature wisdom 
derived from your varied experience amongst men, in all their 
varieties of country and condition; you come to diffuse light and 
dispel darkness ; you come to point to us our pathway through the 
heavens, and place in our hands the lights kindled by Kepler, and 
Newton, and Bowditch, and La Place. For these imperishable gifts 
we offer you all that you would receive, our thanks and our pray- 
ers, that health and happiness may attend you through life, and the 
blessings of the good and the wise hallow your memory through 
all future time. 

It was a sad and venerable maxim of the ancient Greeks, "that 
no man should be accounted happy till after death." However 
true this may have been, in the stormy periods of these brilliant 
Republics of old, or however true it may now be in general, you, 
sir, must have seen enough, in your journey hither, to satisfy you 
that yours will form at least one exception to that dark destiny 
which has but too often fallen upon the great benefactors of man- 
kind. 

But, sir, this is not a time, nor an occasion, to recount the past, 
or to anticipate that judgment which the future shall pronounce 
upon the present. My humble but welcome task is performed when, 
on behalf of these my friends and neighbors, I bid you welcome to 
the West — welcome to Ohio — welcome to this village — welcome to 
these people — welcome to the best affections of their hearts. 

10 



IN DEFENSE OF JUDGE McLEAN. 



Mr. FooTE, of Mississippi, at the conclusion of his remaks, by way of personal 
explanation, in the United States Senate, on January 23, 1849, read an extract from 
" Councils, Civil and Moral, of Sir Francis Bacon," which he commended to his honor 
Justice McLean, who had the day before published a card in the National Intelligen- 
cer correcting a misrepresentation of certain of his letters written the preceding year. 
This extract, Mr. FooTE remarked, contained " valuable hints " from which he hoped 
Judge McLean would profit — among others the following: "Judges ought to be 
more learned than witty, more reverend than plausible, and more advised than confi- 
dent; above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue." 

Mr. Corwin's remarks sufficiently explain the nature and purpose of the accusa- 
tion against Judge McLean. Mr. Corwin said: 

I do not rise, Mr. President, to interrupt further the ordinary 
course of business by the prolongation of this interlude at all, but 
only to acquit myself from a sort of imputation which the Senator 
from Mississippi has pleased to cast upon me. 

Here Mr. Foote disclaimed any intention to cast an imputation upon him. 

Mr. President, I dare say, from the apparent personal address 
which the Senator from Mississippi made to me, as one who did not 
choose to rise here in defense of Judge McLean upon the accusation 
presented by that gentleman the other day, that he would have it 
inferred — at least others might infer — that I, by my silence, was 
yielding my acquiescence or agreement to the views taken by him of 
those two fugitive letters, out of which this grave charge has been 
manufactured. 

I did not think it worth while, the other day, when the Senator 
from Mississippi, on a motion to amend a post-office bill, took this 
view of the conduct of my friend, Judge McLean, to say one word 
in his defense, for with the utmost deference in the world to the opin- 
ions then and now expressed by the Senator from Mississippi, I did 
not perceive that, with the facts before the public, it was possible 
for his remarks to cast in any mind, other than one very much like 
his own on particular subjects, the slightest imputation whatever on 
the purity of character or the judicial rectitude of Judge McLean. 

U30) 



DEFENSE OF JUDGE MCLEAN. 131 

All that I could perceive in the matter brought forth by the Senator 
from Mississippi was the expression of an opinion upon two sub- 
jects, about which everybody knows there has been a very great con- 
trariety of opinion in this country. Judge McLean, in a letter to 
some friend, who had evidently written to him on the subject, wish- 
ing to know his opinions on that great political question — the origin 
and conduct of the Mexican war — had expressed his views in rela- 
tion to the matter upon which he was interrogated. It may be pos- 
sible he may be mistaken. In the minds of that class of politicians 
who agree with the Senator from Mississippi upon the subject, Judge 
McLean may have been considered in error in regard to the origin 
of the Mexican war, and the means which, in his judgment, should 
be applied to bring it to a speedy and honorable termination. But 
is it possible that the Senate of the United States is to be a court of 
error upon the preferment of a charge by any one, either in a news- 
paper or here, to correct the political opinions of a judge of the 
Supreme Court, who, on being interrogated by one of his fellow-cit- 
izens in a letter, ventures to express his views upon one of these 
much agitated topics? I could not conceive that the Senate of the 
United States or the people of the United States, could expect that 
a man, because he happens to hold the highly-respectable and re- 
sponsible station of a judge of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, can have no opinion in common with his fellow-men upon a 
subject that has called forth the expression of feeling and opinions 
from almost every citizen of the republic. I do not conceive that, 
because the ermine to which the Senator has so emphatically alluded 
is upon his shoulders, his tongue is therefore ever to be silent. He 
is entitled to a vote, in common with every man in the Republic, 
for a President, for a member of Congress, and of course he must 
•exercise his own judgment upon such subjects with other men, and 
I had supposed that such exercise of his judgment, and expression 
of it too, would be tolerated by his fellow-citizens. 

Mr. President, Judge McLean has said in a letter to somebody 
(and I really do not know to whom the letter was addressed, nor 
did I apprehend exactly its purport when alluded to the other day 
by the Senator from Mississippi ) that he supposes Slavery was not 
considered as having an existence in any country until its existence 
was established by a law. For that I understand the Senator from 
Mississippi thinks that Judge McLean is in some degree culpable. 
Well, now, it seems that the Supreme Court of the United States 



132 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

have, in effect, so decided, and Judge McLean has referred to the 
decision of the Supreme Court, which, in his judgment, estabhshes 
this question of law. He has commented upon the decision of the 
court which has thus adjudicated the question, and I ask if it can be 
possibly manufactured into judicial impropriety for a judge of the 
Supreme Court to repeat what are the acknowledged decisions of 
that Court? I ask if it is likely that the people of this country, 
who have very long and very properly reposed great confidence in 
Judge McLean in various positions, political as well as judicial, can 
be brought to beHeve him guilty of moral turpitude for such an act? 

Mr. FooTE here interposed a suggestion that the subject upon which Judge 
McLean had expressed his opinion in the letter complained of is yet an open question, 
and undecided in the aspect given to it, by any court. He alluded to the arguments 
of distinguished jurists in the Senate, who co-operated in the Compromise Bill of the 
previous session, to show that such were their views, and that the question had never 
been adjudicated, and it was in the face of the fact that it would be likely to come 
before Judge McLean for adjudication that the latter thought proper to pronounce his 
opinion. This he challenged Mr. CoRWiN to "deny" or " vindicate" if he could. 

I thought that question was settled before the date at which 
this letter was written. 

Mr. FooTE. — I stated the other day that the bill, although defeated at the last 
session, would probably be revived during this session and passed. 

I do not remember whether that bill, to which the gentleman 
from Mississippi has alluded, called the Compromise Bill, had gone 
to its grave before this letter was written by Judge McLean or not, 
nor do I think it material. 

Judge McLean has only ventured to express, in relation to the 
subject of Slavery, what is the prevailing professional opinion in that 
circuit in which he resides. I am sure I am not mistaken in this, 
and I dare say the Senator from Mississippi knows it also, I do not 
intend, Mr. President, to enter into a controversy here in relation to 
the correctness of that opinion. I will only add to the high author- 
ity of Judge McLean upon that subject one other — that of my own. 
I dare say the Senator from Mississippi will consider that as settling 
the question. That will be respected I hope. It is my opinion, and 
I have not been able to gather from Blackstone's Commentaries any- 
thing to the contrary. I know that there are few, very few, high 
authorities differing from Judge McLean and myself on that point. 
But if that be the fact, does it necessarily follow, Mr. President, 
when Judge McLean is merely so unfortunate as to differ from the 
Senator from Mississippi, and other gentlemen of the highest profcs- 



DEFENSE OF JUDGE MCLEAN. 133 

sional respectability in the country, that he is therefore unfit to pre- 
side in the circuit north-west of the Ohio river, or sit upon the bench 
of the Supreme Court of the United States ? I ask the Senator from 
Mississippi in all candor if it would, under such circumstances, be 
quite fair to arraign in some sort as criminal the conduct of a man 
for the mere expression of his opinion upon a mooted question of 
law? Why, sir, if this were to be the rule by which we would try 
the judges of the Supreme Court, we should have to expel two or 
three of them from the bench at every term. They have their books 
of reports full of dissenting opinions. 

I know the Senator from Mississippi feels much upon this sub- 
ject. I dare say he is anxious to preserve the judicial purity of the 
bench. But while he is guarding us on this vital point — and all 
must give high commendation to the motive which governs him in 
this — would it not be well for the grave Senators who sit here and 
listen to these accusations, which can result in nothing but recrimi- 
nation, to remember that we, too, under certain circumstances, should 
be enrobed in this sacred and inviolable purple, and that it would be 
well for us not to prejudge any question which may possibly come 
before us. If Judge McLean has done anything unworthy of his 
judicial character, and worthy our notice at all, then I think he has 
done that which ought to bring him before us on an impeachment. 
How, then, would the Senator from Mississippi, with his judicial 
gravity, backed by Bacon and Cicero, appear? I am afraid that 
some here did not quite understand the gentleman's Latin, and I beg 
the Senator to translate it for the benefit of country gentlemen like 
myself How should we look with the ermine on our shoulders, if 
Judge McLean were here on trial? We should, doubtless, strut 
through the scene with senatorial dignity, having prejudged the 
cause at the instance of the Senator from Mississippi. I dare say 
the Senator from Mississippi would sit and adjudicate too upon this 
very question which he had himself already prejudged. I do not 
mention this because I suppose it possible for any one to conceive 
for a moment of the existence of an impeachment against this excel- 
lent gentleman for anything contained in his letters declining to 
become a candidate for the Presidency, unless, indeed, you impeach 
a man for the rarest of all qualities, modesty. I do not know but 
the exhibition, or even possession of that quality, may be by some 
gentlemen considered a crime, but I do not think there is anything 



134 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

in Bacon or Cicero that would warrant us in taking off the head of 
the judge for his exhibition of this amiable frailty. 

I do not know, and I will not venture to state, further than on 
the authority of Judge McLean himself — and I read his letter very 
hastily — that the Supreme Court have decided this very question ; 
but I think a fair interpretation of the judgment of the Supreme 
Court in the case of Rhodes and Slaughter, referred to by Judge 
McLean, would warrant him in saying that they had decided a prop- 
osition from which it is deducible that Slavery is a matter of munic- 
ipal legislation, and could not exist without it. But he is not infalli- 
ble — he may be mistaken. I wish he was infallible. I wish others, 
Mr. President, that I will not name, were so too. 

But I must say to the Senator from Mississippi, what I dare say 
he may have known, or heard of, that if it is supposed that the pro- 
duction of these letters, or any possible inference that can be drawn 
from them, will shake the confidence of those who have known 
Judge McLean personally during his whole political and judicial life, 
that all who indulge in this belief will find themselves (as mortal 
men often are) sadly mistaken. It will not be believed that a man 
who has passed through the stations which he has filled, with so lit- 
tle exception ever taken to his public conduct, has, at this period of 
his life, gone so far astray as to forfeit the good opinion of his fel- 
low-citizens in that place which he has occupied with so much honor 
to himself, and, I will venture to say, with so much usefulness to the 
country, which he has so faithfully served for twenty years. 

Mr. President, let me again state that I do not rise to present 
the slightest objection to the expression of the views the Senator 
from Mississippi takes, knowing that they are honestly his own pecu- 
liar views. Nor do I object in the slightest degree to his promulga- 
ting his opinions of Judge McLean, or any other judge, at all times, 
and on all occasions, anywhere and everywhere, but I felt myself 
compelled, representing, as I do, in part, the State in which Judge 
McLean has resided during the whole of his mature life, to say 
thus much, lest my friends might suppose (as the Senator from Mis- 
sissippi, I suppose, did) that I silently acquiesced in the justness of 
his remarks on this and a former occasion. 



ON THE ACTION OF OHIO TOUCHING 
FUGITIVE SLAVES. 



Pending the discussion of the Slavery question in the United States Senate, April 
3, 1850, upon the resolutions submitted by Mr. Bell, which Mr. FooTE moved to be 
referred to a committee of thirteen ( Mr. Underwood, of Kentucky, having con- 
cluded), Mr. CORWIN and Mr. Foote rose together, Mr. CORWIN asked: 

Will the Senator from Mississippi yield me the floor a few min- 
utes, for the purpose of explaining a point in the laws of Ohio, 
referred to by the Senator from Kentucky? 

Mr. Foote yielded the floor. 

Mr. President, the Senator from Kentucky has been pleased to 
animadvert with some severity upon the legislation of Ohio touching 
fugitive slaves. I am satisfied if my friend from Kentucky would 
review carefully what has been done on this subject by the Legisla- 
ture of Ohio he would find reason to retract a portion of his 
remarks, and certainly to abate much of that asperity of feeling 
which his mistaken views have inspired. I only desire to occupy 
the Senate a moment, while I correct what I deem a mistake as to 
the constitutional character of the law, said by the Senator from 
Kentucky to have been revived by the statute of 1843. This act of 
1843 repealed the celebrated act passed, as we know, by the Ohio 
Legislature, at the instance of commissioners, Messrs. Morehead and 
Smith, appointed by the authorities of Kentucky. The law of 1839, 
passed at the instance of the Kentucky commissioners, provided 
against kidnapping among other things. 

Sir, if the provisions of the act, which was revived by the law 
of 1843, were just such as the gentleman has represented, I will not 
pretend to say here, without examination, whether they were or 
were not constitutional. The law of 1843 was, at that time, the 
only law in Ohio' providing against kidnapping. When that law was 
repealed, it was necessary to re-enact the old or a similar law against 
the very common offense of kidnapping. To this end a law which 

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136 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

had been very long in force, and which had been suspended by the 
act of 1843, was revived. I have not this revived law before me, 
but I believe it was simply an act making it penal to take by force 
out of the State any free man, black or white. Such laws, I imagine, 
or laws very similar, may be found on the statute books of many if 
not all the States. Now, Mr. President, if the act revived does, as 
the gentleman supposes, contain a provision forbidding the seizure of 
any colored person, under any pretense, without warrant first 
obtained, and was therefore unconstitutional, and an infraction of 
the rights of slaveholders, then the celebrated act of 1839, passed 
at the instance of Kentucky, by her commissioners. Smith and 
Morehead, was also unconstitutional ; for I am very sure it contained 
a provision making it a penitentiary offense for any person to seize a 
colored man until he should first obtain process for that purpose 
from a judicial officer. 

Sir, we hear loud complaints of the revived Ohio law, such as 
that it disturbed the fraternal relations of Ohio and Kentucky. It 
was just what Kentucky herself had asked, and agreed to in the 
celebrated act of 1839. By that law, if a Kentuckian laid his hand 
on a black man in Ohio, to arrest him as a slave, without first filing 
an affidavit and obtaining a warrant, he must go to the Ohio peni- 
tentiary. These, sir, were the terms fixed by treaty between the 
two States; these were the happy, peaceful, fraternal relations 
of the two States as settled by themselves. Sir, it seems to me, if 
the present law of Ohio against kidnapping be unconstitutional, she 
(Kentucky) has no right to complain, since she herself asked for 
and agreed to the same provision in the act of 1839. 

Mr. President, this is a matter of small significance, it is true ; 
but it is well to settle the matter of history aright before it finds 
its way into Greeley's Almanac, so that posterity may not be 
deceived. I will only add, sir, that whatever the letter of our laws 
may have been, I have never known or heard of a case in Ohio 
where any person was punished for arresting a slave under any cir- 
cumstances, where the person charged could prove that he was really 
the owner, or agent of the owner, of such slave. 



ON THE BILL FOR THE RELIEF OF WM. DARBY. 



IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE APRIL 23, 1850. 



This bill proposed to give the venerable author of " Darby's Gazetteer " 
the sum of $1,500 for the use of a map prepared from materials collected by Mr. Darby 
while acting in the capacity of a deputy surveyor for the Government. Mr. Darby 
was then of very advanced age, in humble circumstances, subsisting upon the salary of 
a clerkship of the lowest grade in the Government. Mr. CoRWiN observed: 

This application was referred to a select committee, of which I 
happened to be chairman at the time, and the report from it, just 
read, was prepared by myself Now I agree with the Senator [ Mr. 
Turner], who has just taken his seat, that there is no legal claim 
presented here, but I cannot agree with him that there is not an equi- 
table claim, and just such an equitable claim, I imagine, as has been 
repeatedly recognized by both branches of Congress. The map 
mentioned, and upon which the memorial and claim are based, was 
made upon the individual researches and labors of the memorialist 
at a very early period of time and before, I believe, the cession of 
Louisiana was ascertained, and it has since been, in every treaty 
which the Government has chosen to make respecting our boundary 
in that quarter, the basis upon which that treaty has proceeded. 
Now, does it appear to the Senate that any other person has done 
the same thing ? Does it appear to the Senate that these labors of 
Mr. Darby have been of real value to the Government and people of 
the United States, and that no other person's labor has furnished 
those materials which this Government has availed itself of, from 
time to time, in settling those questions that have been often the 
subject of discussion, and of very deep interest, concerning our 
boundaries, arising out of the treaty of the cession of Louisiana ? 
In these matters, as every one is aware, that has been the map upon 
which every treaty has been regulated. The materials for it were 
furnished at his own expense, and by labors which very few are will- 

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138 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

ing to encounter. It is true, the main object of them was the grati- 
fication of his own curiosity, if you please, for every one who 
knows anything of the history of this man, knows that he has been 
all his life engaged in these matters, and that he is a gentleman of 
uncommon endowments. Of these qualities and labors of the man 
the Government of the United States have availed themselves in the 
way in which reference has been made. Suppose that Mr. Darby, 
instead of ascertaining the boundaries of the territories in that quar- 
ter, and furnishing this information, had gone with a company of 
men, one of these pioneer expeditions of which we have heard, and 
driven off the Indians, elevated the American flag, and established 
the American power on his own responsibility and at his own ex- 
pense, in a country which at last should come into the possession of 
the United States. Then, if Mr. Darby presented a memorial, 
showing at what great expense he had marched through the country, 
and established the flag of the United States where it had not before 
been known, and carried the American eagle into lands where it had 
never soared before, and killed several Indians, perhaps, all of which 
the Government had availed itself of, how many sections of land 
would you give him ? How many sections of land have you given 
for such services? How many propositions now lie on your table of 
such a character ? .Now, the country derives benefit from all this. 
The one is the achievement of gunpower, and the other of science, 
for your benefit, and not merely for your benefit, but for the benefit 
of all men. Now, by these facts which he has collected, and by 
these labors, of which you have availed yourself, you have been 
benefited, and yet you have never paid Mr. Darby for them. What 
is equity, I beg to know, as contradistinguished for legal obligations ? 
Here is work and labor done of which you have had the benefit, and 
there (pointing to the bill) is the bill of particulars, sir, and why 
not give him compensation therefor? 

Senator Dawson here remarked, "We will pass it." 
Very well, then, I have nothing more to say. 



AGAINST CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. 

In the House of Representatives in the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, 
December l8, 1822, upon the bill to introduce public whipping as a punishment for 
petty larceny, Mr. Corwin addressed the Committee of the Whole as follows : 

Mr. Chairman: 

I never rise to offer my opinions to this House without feehng- 
a powerful impression of the many embarrassments which I am 
obhged to encounter. This, sir, does not originate from a servile 
dread of your criticism, or the consequences of declaring thus pub- 
licly and to the world the honest convictions of my heart. No, sir, 
it arises from a more natural and a more honorable cause ; it proceeds 
from that deference which is due, and which we almost instinctively 
pay to age and experience, and a consciousness that I am wasting- 
the time of this House in vain, when opposing my arguments and 
judgment to the well-formed and authoritative opinions of my vener- 
able friends. Under these circumstances, I do assure this committee 
I should have considered my duty discharged by a silent vote upon 
this bill, had not my professional pursuits frequently compelled me 
to give a careful and often painful examination to most of the sub- 
jects involved in its policy. 

In the prosecution and sometimes in the defense of criminals, I 
have had frequent opportunities of viewing and considering the oc- 
cult and secret sources of crime more distinctly than I possibly 
could had I been an unconcerned observer. I will venture to assert 
that there is not, in the whole circle of society, a situation so favor- 
able to the discovery of the true nature and causes of crime as a 
practice at the bar of a court of criminal jurisdiction. There you 
may behold, as from an eminence, the whole area over which we are 
now about to pass. Here you see one class of mankind, whose orbit 
seems to have been fixed and revolutions all perCormed within the 
regions of vice. Others again, of more equivocal character, who, 
without any settled system of action or determining force of dispo- 

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140 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

sition, have been impelled forward in a wild and eccentric direction, 
and occasionally and accidentally passed within the hemisphere of 
crime. With these advantages, I would hope not entirely unim- 
proved, I have formed an opinion on the subject opposed to the 
principles of this bill, which all the very able and ingenious argu- 
ments of the gentlemen on the other side have not induced me to 
relinquish. I shall not differ with the gentleman from Highland 
[Mr. Collins] as to the great objects of criminal law. By impos- 
ing certain penalties upon the commission of specified offenses, it is 
intended to reform the convicted culprit, and by the example of his 
punishment to frighten others from the yet untrodden paths of in- 
iquity; and thus, by operating upon that principle common to all, an 
aversion to pain and privation, excite in the mind a thorough abhor- 
ence of the crime which is thus necessarily connected with misery. 
All these point to the great and primal object of both divine and hu- 
man government — the preservation of right, and the promotion of 
human happiness. The scourge, uplifted by the first section of the 
bill, is brought forward as an auxiliary in this great and benevolent 
work. About the ends to be accomplished there can be no differ- 
ence of opinion — the adaptation of this instrument to the accom- 
plishment of these ends is the only subject of dispute. But, sir, 
when we consider the variety of considerations necessarily connected 
with the subject of crime and its punishment, and that each of these 
is to be carefully weighed in the balance of judgment, and the proper 
weight and value assigned to each, before a correct result can be 
had, it is not surprising there should exist an honest difterence of 
opinion as to the means by which the grand object in view is most 
likely to be insured. 

I am satisfied, if the gentlemen who advocate this bill would ex- 
amine themselves closely, they would find that considerations very 
remotely connected with the true principles of criminal jurispru- 
dence have contributed very powerfully to the establishment of 
their present opinion. I am confirmed in this belief by the reiter- 
ated arguments of the friends of the bill, drawn from the expensive- 
ness of the system at present in force. Your present mode of pun- 
ishment, say they, must be abolished; the expense is intolerable, 
and can no longer be borne by the counties. Let us examine then, 
for a moment, this argument and see whether its intrinsic weight is 
such as to give it the first rank among the reasons for abolishing the 
old and adopting the new law now proposed. It will be admitted, 



AGAINST CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. 141 

that the first and main designs in adopting any system of criminal 
law, are to reform the criminal, and by his punishment to deter 
others from imitating his conduct and committing similar crimes. 

This admission is sufficient of itself to show the comparative 
weakness of all arguments which proceed from a calculation of costs. 
It surely requires no argument to prove that the money expended 
in procuring the punishment itself can have no effect in producing 
those consequences, for the sake of which you are alone warranted 
in passing any law upon the subject; that is, the reformation of the 
culprit, and the security of your right by holding out the terror of 
his example to others. For instance, would a post and whip, which 
should cost five hundred dollars, have an effect upon the criminal or 
society in any respect different from one equally strong and power- 
ful, used in the same manner, which should not cost the tenth part 
of that sum? The punishment is alike severe in both cases; the 
effect upon the criminal himself and upon those who witness his 
punishment would be precisely the same in the former case, which 
costs five hundred, as in the latter, which costs fifty dollars. If the 
price at which the punishment can be procured is the first and most 
important consideration, then the gentlemen, to be consistent, should 
abandon the measure now proposed, for many systems of punish- 
ment may be devised, much cheaper than even the swift and sum- 
mary vengeance of the whipping-post and scourge. This view of 
the subject may enable us to form something like a correct estimate 
of the argument of expense so long and so frequently urged. Still, 
sir, I would not be understood to argue that in the enactment of a 
law of this kind, we should pay no regard to the expense which will 
be incurred in carrying that law into effect ; but I would show by 
these remarks that this argument can only be made effectual, when 
it is proved in support of it that the operation of the law is so ex- 
pensive as to bear no reasonable proportion to the good effects re- 
sulting from it. 

There are some among us, I believe, who are in favor of the 
bill upon the table, who are, nevertheless, of opinion that fine or im- 
prisonment is a punishment more appropriate to the crimes we are 
enacting upon. They tell us they detest and abhor the vile and 
bloody instruments with which they propose to arm our courts, and 
that they do not expect their property will find a more efficient pro- 
tection from these agents than it has formerly experienced from fine 
and imprisonment ; that they are willing to adopt a law which they 



142 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

believe to be wrong and impolitic, with the hope of reducing the 
taxes, and relieving the existing burdens of the people. Sir, the 
people have required no such sacrifice at your hands ; they have not 
petitioned you for relief; they have not prayed you to redeem them 
from this grievous oppression — "this Egyptian yoke." Gentlemen 
have mistaken the clamors of a few selfish individuals for the voice 
of the State. If it were true, as has been represented, that the 
cries of the State had resounded from one extremity of it to the 
other, they would have been heard within these walls in the constitu- 
tional mode ; your tables would have groaned beneath the weight 
of their petitions. The people, sir, are not idle or inattentive to 
their interest, nor are they so selfish or avaricious as to sacrifice the 
general interest, honor and prosperity to such sordid and pecu- 
niary considerations. Ask yourselves the question, would you not 
rather sacrifice the pitiful sum that would be drawn from your own 
pockets to pay this item of expense in the administration of the law, 
than to introduce these ornaments of the slave-driver into your tem- 
ples of justice ? 

The whipping-post and the lash are indeed beautiful appendages 
to the public buildings of your counties, and when the traveler, at- 
tracted to your shores by the fame of your unexampled growth in 
everything which marks the character of a great and enlightened 
State, shall inquire of you the use of that post which occupies a sta- 
tion so commanding among the public buildings of Ohio, what an- 
swer will you give ? You must tell him the truth ; and you may 
inform him that it is a deity that is worshiped by the seven hundred 
thousand inhabitants of Ohio ; that his peculiar attributes and qual- 
ities are a love of money and a thirst insatiable for human blood ; 
that his voracious stomach is regularly, three times a year, gorged 
with his favorite drink, drawn from the veins of your citizens by the 
application of whips and scourges. Complete the story if you can, 
and tell him that for this he saves in your pocket from five to ten 
cents a year. But, sir, I will dismiss this point, and proceed to con- 
sider what is in truth a much more important branch of the present 
subject — the nature and effect of the punishment itself The dis- 
pute now is between the stripes on the bare back, as proposed in 
this bill, and the fine and imprisonment of the old law. In the 
view which I propose to take, in a few words, of these two modes 
of punishment, it will be necessary to keep steadily in our sight the 
nature and character of the person upon whom the punishment is to 



AGAINST CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. 143 

act, and the ends to be accomplished by its infliction. Here I would 
use the very instance produced by the gentleman from Highland in 
support of the bill, guided by the unerring laws of human nature. 
Let us test this example, and let experience decide whether the con- 
clusion I shall draw be true or false. Let then the person be an old 
offender, hackneyed and trained in the ways of wickedness; by an 
habitual communion with depravity his sense of shame is destroyed 
and his love of reputation extinguished; his crimes shall have fixed 
upon him the abhorrence of all who knew him, and broken every tie 
which once held him in a state of social existence. Such a being, it 
is argued, can only be punished by the infliction of stripes; the 
blunted sensibilities of such a wretch, it is said, can only be roused 
and acted upon by the tremendous apparatus of vengeance, furnished 
forth in the first section of the bill. This, sir, is a conclusion which 
I cannot admit; my mind directs me to a result directly opposed to 
the one at which my friend has arrived. I shall very readily admit, 
sir, that persons may be found approximating very nearly at least 
to the character described. Suppose him bound and fettered to the 
whipping-post; imagine, if you please, all the playmates of his child- 
hood, the companions of his youth, and the graver acquaintances of 
his riper years, to be present surrounding the place of his supposed 
disgrace and punishment. What, sir, to such a being as we have im- 
agined would this be, or what effect would it have ? Would he be 
overwhelmed and dismayed at the frown and disdain of the multi- 
tude ? No, sir, aware of this, he would arm himself with triple insen- 
sibility. Lost to all sense of shame, he looks upon their scorn 
and abhorrence with muscles unmoved, or a smile of contempt. 
Bankrupt in character and with no desire to redeem a ruined reputa- 
tion, he looks forward to their future detestation as a thing with 
which he has long been familiar, and about which he is utterly indif- 
ferent. The whip, then, as the gentlemen have argued, is the only 
possible enemy with which he is to contend — he has nothing more to 
arm himself against but the lash. The surrounding multitude, all the 
parade and preparation of the scene, are idle pageantry to him ; and 
if he can but harden his nerves, and fortify his flesh with the proper 
degree of insensibility, he can endure with equal stoicism and uncon- 
cern the severest corporal pain that human ingenuity can invent, or 
human power inflict. If it can be shown that man, when it is neces- 
sary, and when properly schooled for the purpose, can endure with 
comparative ease the severest corporal pain, then I think it is fair to 



144 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

conclude that this would be the case in the instance before us. Be 
assured, the old and well-practiced criminal has not been such a care- 
less observer of human events as not to have anticipated the proba- 
bility of punishment and prepared for its arrival, and when he sees 
the bustling and eager crowd assembled for the very purpose of be- 
holding his humiliation and feasting upon his torment, you need not 
be surprised if all the energies of his depraved and hardy nature 
were called into action to disappoint the still more brutal expecta- 
tions and desires of the mob. 

Hard as this triumph of our nature over pain, its natural enemy, 
may seem, thousands of examples could be produced to prove it an 
object of easy acquisition. Look to the history of the Indian tribes 
of America, when the vanquished warrior unfortunately survives a 
battle in which his tribe has been beaten and himself made prisoner. 
The conquest is not complete until the victor chief has exerted his 
system of torture upon the captive. The excellence of this scheme 
of cruelty is made to exist in the length of time it will continue its 
severity without destroying the sensibility of the victim. Yet such 
is the power of human nature, when fully exerted, that malice, when 
she has exhausted all her invention, is often disappointed of her 
wish, and obliged, at last, to behold the unconquered son of the des- 
ert standing amid his torments with as much ease as if he were re- 
posing upon his own native hills, breathing the fragrance of the wild 
flowers of the desert, and surrounded with all that could soothe the 
soul and gratify the sense. 

So it will be with the old, the stern and obdurate malefactor. 
It would be found impossible to inflict stripes upon him with such 
severity as to produce any effect upon him at the time ; of course, as 
to himself, the effect, if any, must cease to operate the moment he is 
discharged. But, sir, what impression will those receive who witness 
this impotent attempt? The answer is obvious. The abhorrence of 
his crime, and the terror of its punishment are all lost and forgotten 
in the admiration created by the fortitude and indifference of the cul- 
prit under the influence of the scourge ; and the whole transaction 
leaves no impression upon the mind of the beholder, except that he 
had witnessed an unavailing attempt by an officer to inflict a severe 
punishment upon a convicted villain, who obstinately and triumph- 
antly resisted all his power. Loose your criminal from the post, and 
in an hour after all this has happened you shall find him celebrating 
his victory in drunken revelry with his licentious companions. 



AGAINST CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. 145 

But, sir, it does by no means follow that there is no punishment 
which can have the wished-for effect. Yes, there is a punishment by 
which he may be made to suffer; meet him, oppose him in the very 
principle which prompts and urges him to the perpetration of crimes. 
A love of abandoned company and an aversion to the labor and con- 
finement of honest pursuits have impelled him to seek a livelihood 
in violation of your laws. Let him know, then, that in the pursuits 
of his favorite enjoyments the moment he passes the prescribed lim- 
its of the law he shall forfeit the very boon he seeks. Show him 
that he must exchange his wild and erratic independence for the 
chains and bolts of a prison ; that his favorite companions must be 
forsaken for the deep solitude and ten-fold horrors of a dungeon. 
Here he shall be deprived of the wild and spirit-stirring pleasures 
which enabled him to avoid reflection upon his crime. If it be pos- 
sible, by human agency, to reform and punish a being such as I have 
described, they are to be expected under circumstances like these ; 
cut off from all his once loved pursuits, and deprived of all external 
objects of reflection, he is compelled to commune with his own 
mind. The sounding scourge and hissing snakes of his offended con- 
science drive him, in desperation, to that open sepulcher — the naked 
human heart. Then, and then only, does the conscious mind be- 
come its own awful world, and the hardened wretch, that a short time 
before bid defiance to all the terrors of penal justice, now, alone and 
subdued, cowers and sinks under the weight of her retributive ven- 
geance. 

"In pangs that longest rack and latest kill." 

Surely, if there be punishment against which our nature can op- 
pose no adaquate force; if there be terrors which can arrest the 
hand of wickedness in the half executed crime, they are to be found 
in the darkness and loneliness of solitary confinement — in the dun- 
geons of a jail. 

Now, sir, let us turn for a moment to another and very differ- 
ent character, but one who may often be the subject of that punish- 
ment now proposed for our adoption. He shall be one who has 
acted, not from a fixed and resolute disregard of moral obligation or 
social duty, but rather from a thoughtless impetuosity of disposition, 
which frequently hurries men, otherwise virtuous and honorable, to 
the commission of crime. He may be one who has acted under a 
strong and imperious necessity. I will suppose him to be a young 
man. He may be the pride and only hope of his humble but re- 
11 



146 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

spectable parents; but, in an ungarded moment, or under the influ- 
ence of strong and uncontrollable necessity, he has done a deed 
which brings him to the whipping-post. Need I pursue this descrip- 
tion further? Need I ask the venerable gentlemen to place them- 
selves in the situation of such a father? Is there a man upon this 
floor who could see the back of such a stripling bared to the inhu- 
man scourge ? No, there is not one ; the mover of this bill could not ; 
its best friends could not endure such a sight. Where, then, is the 
influence of an example which none can behold — which no father 
would permit his children to see ; or what kind of law, I ask, is this 
which in its operation violates and outrages the first, the original, the 
best, the fairest attributes of our nature ? If the sheriff should do his 
duty on such an occasion, he would bring down upon him the execra- 
tion of all who knew him; if he fails in his duty, the law is a mock- 
ery and its administration a farce. What effect will this have upon 
the offender himself? Will he be reformed by your punishment? 
No, no one will pretend it; because it is a kind of punishment cal- 
culated to stimulate the angry and vindictive feelings of the soul, 
and not to subdue the depravityof the heart. Loose your victim, 
and, again driven out from among men, he goes forth a desperado, 
a wretch, prepared "to war with men and forfeit heaven." 

There are many other views which might be taken of this sub- 
ject against the policy of the law, but I fear I shall weary the pa- 
tience of the committee. There are, however, some further objec- 
tions to this bill, which, in justice to my own feelings, I cannot omit. 
All writers on the subject of criminal law agree, and the common 
sense of every man will confirm the opinion, that the certainty of 
punishment should be regarded more than any other consideration, 
in the enactment of a criminal code. Will this grand primary object 
be obtained by the passage of this bill? I answer it will not. If 
you tell me this punishment is more severe than fine and imprison- 
ment, and therefore preferable, I answer that in proportion as you 
increase the severity of the punishment, so in proportion do you di- 
minish the certainty of its infliction ; courts will be more scrupulous 
and technical in motions to arrest judgments and to quash indict- 
ments; juries will not convict for an offense so readily where the 
punishment is cruel, as when it is more lenient. Here again I must 
appeal to the experience of every gentleman who has been at all con- 
versant with the courts of justice for the truth of this remark. But, 
sir, there is a better reason than this. I still believe that public 



AGAINST CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. 147 

opinion revolts at the idea of this species of punishment, and I will 
defy any man, however strong and cogent the proof may be, to pro- 
duce a conviction, in five cases in ten, where the punishment conse- 
quent upon the verdict is odious and detestable to the jury. Your 
offenders would here see the opinion and sympathies of the whole 
community perpetually engaged in their behalf, and acquittals would 
take place where guilt was manifest. Thus, sir, is the first great con- 
sideration (a moral certainty that punishment must and will succeed 
crime ) lost sight of in the bill. This is of tl^ very last importance 
— crime and punishment, in the administration of justice, should be 
linked together like cause and effect. But they are disjoined far as 
the poles from each other, and a conviction, with many juries, would 
be almost beyond the limits of probability. But I am told there is 
a saving alternative for these cases ; the court may whip, fine, or im- 
prison, or all, if they choose. I answer, juries will not trust their 
verdict to the mercy of the court. They will argue thus: "We may, 
by finding the defendant guilty, be the means of carrying him to the 
whipping-post ; we cannot tell what the court may do ; we will rather 
acquit than risk the consequences which may follow a conviction." 

This alternative, which the gentlemen resort to as the salvation of 
the bill, is to my mind one of its most objectionable features. It is a 
fact well known, that some counties in the State will never, under 
any circumstances, resort to the whipping-post while they have any 
alternative left; it is equally certain that in some circuits you would 
seldom hear of fine and imprisonment, and all would be whipped. 
In this way we should produce this strange phenomenon in jurispru- 
dence ; a general law made for the whole State alike, operating in one 
part of the State in a way and with tendencies widely different from 
its operation in another part of the same State. If it be true as con- 
tended, that the whipping-post is to moralize, reform, and Christian- 
ize wherever it goes, and if it be true that the present system encour- 
ages vice, frauds, and pampers crimes, what kind of population shall 
we have in Ohio ? Where whipping prevails, we shall behold a pious 
race, strictly observant of all the mandates of the decalogue, and full 
of the wisdom that "exalteth a nation." But where fine and impris- 
onment are the punishment, vice, unbridled and lawless, must riot 
upon the peace of the country, cursed with all the crimes that are a 
"reproach to any people." There will be in the circuit protected by 
the whipping-post none but Israelties without guile ; pass but an ideal 
boundary, and in the adjoining district now you have but devils in- 



148 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

carnate. This motley and discordant population must be the result 
of the operation of this law, if there be that wonderful difference in 
the modes of punishment which is contended by the friends of the bill. 

Permit me, sir, to ask one question more, and I have done. 
Under the administration of the old law, have we not experienced all 
the good order and social peace that can be expected in the best reg- 
ulated society; has there, since the adoption of that system, which is 
I believe about six years, been an increase of crime beyond the in- 
crease of population? There has not. Who can or will deny this? 
But, sir, if there had been, it might be accounted for upon principles 
different from those which grow out of an insufficient law upon the 
subject of crimes. Within the time I have named, a regular army 
has been disbanded and let loose among us; all that was vicious, 
depraved, and licentious in that army has been poured in upon us 
and mingled its corruptions with the elements of society. Yet with 
all this to contend with, your old law has struggled through the 
conflict, faithful, efficient and adequate to the purposes of its crea- 
tion. Do not suppose that I am detracting from the merits of the 
brave men who sustained their country's honor glorious and untar- 
nished throughout the struggle to which I have alluded. No, sir; 
I believe they would have carried your eagle in triumph round the 
globe had they been commanded to do so ; yet, sir, the melancholy 
truth is still the same. The army is not a school of morality; it is 
not a place where the peaceful virtues are taught or practiced. Let 
it not be forgotten, that this very kind of punishment has been dis- 
used and forbidden in the armies of a Bonaparte. . 

Yet this fugitive from the dominions of a military despotism is 
to be naturalized and made a citizen of Ohio. I will present one case 
for the consideration of the military gentlemen of the house. Sup- 
pose an old soldier, with whom you had fought and bled, should be- 
come the subject of this punishment ; unused to the arts and avoca- 
tions of peace, he has stolen a trifle, and is brought to the post. 
While stripping for the sacrifice, should you behold upon his rough 
and manly bosom the scars which speak of his bloody and heroic 
deeds at Orleans, at Chippewa, or at the Thames, is there an Amer- 
ican arm that could be raised against him? If there be such a 
wretch he must have a heart harder than adamant, lower than perdi- 
tion, blacker than despair. Sir, I must sit down. I ought, perhaps, 
to pursue the subject further, but I must give place to those whose 
years entitle them to a greater share of the indulgence of this House. 



ON THE PUBLIC DEPOSITS. 



In the House of Representatives of the United States, Friday, April 4, 1834, 
the order of the day, for the first hour, was the consideration of the Resolution of 
Mr. Marsden, of Alabama, proposing that the public deposits should remain in the 
State Banks ; but that Congress should have the selection and regulation of the banks 
in which they are to be placed. On this subject Mr. Corwin had the floor, and ad- 
dressed the House until the expiration of the hour. On Friday, April nth, the same 
question coming up as the unfinished business of the first hour, he resumed and con- 
tinued to the expiration of the hour, and on the following morning he concluded his 
remarks. 

Mr. Speaker: 

I feel sensibly the very awkward and embarrassing relations that 
have subsisted between speakers and their audience in this House 
during the last six weeks of this important and protracted discussion. 
He who has at any time been so fortunate as to obtain the floor, sees 
that he occupies a position which many others around him have 
sought with unavailing effect. Those around him, on the other hand, 
feel as if they had been deprived by another of a right which they 
all possess in common with him, while the daily threat of the major- 
ity to silence debate by a call of the previous question, gives just 
cause to fear that the right of themselves and those they represent to 
be heard in this House on subjects affecting deeply their interests will 
be finally denied them. 

I cannot say, with the honorable gentleman from New Jersey 
[Mr. Dickerson] , that I have been instructed to speak on this sub- 
ject, yet I can assure the House that its manifest impatience of 
further discussion would induce me still to observe a silence which I 
have rigidly maintained for nearly three sessions of Congress, did I 
not feel myself impelled to a different course by obligations which I 
can no longer disregard. My judgment does not approve, nor do 
my feelings participate in that anxiety which has been expressed to 
bring this discussion to a close. It should not be matter of surprise 
to any one that this subject has for three months engrossed the atten- 

(149) 



150 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

tion of Congress to the exclusion of almost every other. Its magni- 
tude should exclude all precipitation when it is approached, and ad- 
monish us to delay and ponder well before we decide. It involves 
great principles, which all must see lie deep in the foundations of our 
political organization ; it ranges over a vast field of constitutional law ; 
it comprehends many of the most interesting rights of the citizen — 
rights which until now have always been supposed to be included 
within the unquestioned legislative powers of Congress. 

When we reflect that everything valuable to civil liberty, all 
those maxims of good government which are so happily combined in 
our written Constitutions, have been purchased at the expense of 
blood and revolutionary strife, or wrought out into their present shape 
through long ages of trial and painful experience, common prudence 
should suggest great deliberation in any attempt to destroy or re-ad- 
just their established order. It should not be expected that the dear- 
est rights of the citizen, and the most important duties and powers 
of the legislator, are to be discussed here with that sort of inconsid- 
erate haste which may be tolerated in matters of small or temporary 
concernment, but which true wisdom never indulges when we are 
dealing with those great interests which come to us by inheritance 
from the past, which are the birthright of the present, and the best 
hope of future generations. 

I am sure I do not overrate the importance of this discussion. 
The deep excitement felt here, in minds habitually cool, temperate, 
and even phlegmatic, proves that I do not. The excitation of the 
public mind proves to you that I do not magnify its importance. Do 
we want proofs of this? Look abroad over this wide continent. 
Three months ago it was seen agitating the surface like the tremu- 
lous premonitions of the coming earthquake; now it is rocking so- 
ciety to its foundations. The heavings of this fearful convulsion 
have torn from their accustomed walks and natural positions, and pre- 
cipitated into one mass in a neighboring city forty thousand of our 
citizens, each calling upon the other for counsel and co-operation. 
From the populous cities on your Atlantic frontier, where the first 
ripple of discontent was seen, the wave has swollen until it burst like 
a deluge over the mountains, carrying discontent and alarm through 
the peaceful valleys of the great west, inhabited by the most patient, 
temperate and quiet population anywhere to be found on the face of 
the earth. Ominous as this excitement may appear to some, I can- 
not regret its existence. Though the storm that lowers upon our 



ON THE PUBLIC DEPOSITS. 151 

hitherto unclouded horizon be dark, I feel an assured confidence that 
its thunders, when they do burst, will roll to save, not to destroy. 
It gives cheering proof that the spirit of our fathers, that "augured 
misgovernment at a distance, and snuffed the approach of tyranny in 
every tainted gale," is not extinguished in the bosoms of their sons. 

In the notice I shall take of the causes that have produced such 
striking and interesting effects, I do not intend to fatigue the patience 
of gentlemen by any examination of the great elementary and con- 
stitutional principles which belong to this subject. These I shall con- 
sider as settled. Others, to whom I have listened with feelings of 
pride and delight which I cannot soon forget, have left upon this part 
of the canvass their own bright and indelible impressions of reason 
and truth — impressions which any touch from my unpracticed hand 
could not illustrate, but, on the contrary, would most certainly ob- 
scure, if not efface. 

That which I propose to consider somewhat minutely relates to 
a few simple propositions of law arising out of the provisions of the 
act of 1816. These are subjects in themselves of narrow dimensions, 
and to most minds of dry and uninteresting character. Cold and re- 
pulsive, however, as the subjects may be, it is from them, and out of 
them, that a public agent of Congress has endeavored to extract a 
power so large and so pervading that its colossal form meets and 
blocks up the way of Congress in whatever part of our allotted 
sphere we attempt to move. This spectral image of despotism, let 
it be remembered, rises from the tomb of the Bank of the United 
States. The same scepter, with one blow of which he leveled the 
bank in the dust, is at this moment stretched out to bar the ap- 
proaches of Congress, either to the grave of his late victim, or to the 
treasury of the people, on which he has seized as his lawful prey. 

The resolution on your table, which is the immediate subject of 
discussion, proposes a total radical change, or rather subversion, of 
our whole system of finance. That change, it will occur to all, can- 
not be effected unless Congress shall give its approval to the argu- 
ment of the Secretary of the Treasury, giving his reasons for taking 
the first, and, as I fear, fatal step in this new and untried experiment. 
That argument, it is contended, furnishes a legal justification to the 
Secretary for proceeding, at the will and under the direction of the 
President, to dismiss the Bank of the United States from our service 
as an agent to collect and disburse the revenue, and to withhold from 
t that revenue which, by law, was ordered to be deposited with the 



152 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

bank for safe keeping. After a careful, and, as I believe, unbiased 
attention to all that has been urged to sustain this proposition, I can- 
not yield to it the assent of my understanding. 

A very cursory view of the groundwork of this discussion will 
disclose the necessity, in the first place, of a careful examination of 
the powers and duties of the Secretary of the Treasury under the 
Constitution and general laws relating to that department. In set- 
tling the character, origin and responsibilities of that officer is devel- 
oped that radical difference of political faith and practice which di- 
vides the two parties in this House, and, in my judgment, consti- 
tutes the most striking feature of this discussion. 

On one side are arrayed the friends of "executive power." 
They contend that your Secretary of the Treasury is the mere off- 
spring of executive will, and is the agent and instrument of the 
President ; that he sustains this character, not only in the general du- 
ties assigned to him by law, but that such is his character in the re- 
lations between him and the bank that the discretion vested in the 
Secretary by the sixteenth section of the bank charter to withhold 
from that institution "the public deposits, giving his reasons to Con- 
gress for so doing," is not his discretion, but that he must act in obe- 
dience to the discretion, will and judgment of the President in this 
as well as every other duty assigned him by law; that he is responsi- 
ble to the President only, and not to Congress, for the faithful execu- 
tion of duties imposed on him by Congress. In short, they invest 
the President with all the attributes and powers of a superintending 
providence over all the concerns of the Government. It is not sur- 
prising, after having found in our Constitution such a divinity, that 
those who worship at his shrine should hold all inferior beings (as all 
must be so) responsible to him, and him only, for their conduct 
While they give to the President all the powers and attributes of a 
god, they withhold both from the Secretary till they make him much 
less than man. They admit the law has said that the deposits of the 
public moneys shall be made in the Bank of the United States, "un- 
less the Secretary of the Treasury shall otherwise order and direct," 
in which last case he is to lay before Congress his reasons for such 
order and direction. Yet, they contend that while it is the duty ot 
the Secretary to do all these things, he can in none of them exercise 
his own faculties ; he is to see through the President's eyes, reason 
through and by the President's understanding, decide by the Presi- 
dent's will, and execute with the President's power. In other words. 



ON THE PUBLIC DEPOSITS. 153 

he is to be responsible without discretion, to reason without judg- 
ment, decide without will, and execute without power. 

On the other side of this question are to be found those who 
contend for the "power of the people," through their representatives, 
over the money of the people. We maintain that in all things per- 
taining to the collection, safe-keeping and disbursement of their 
taxes, which Congress by the Constitution has the exclusive power 
"to lay and collect," and which can only be paid out when collected 
by act of Congress, the Secretary receives his power to act from 
Congress, is the agent of Congress, and is responsible to Congress for 
the faithful execution of those powers intrusted to him by Congress. 

No one who has attended to the arguments in this House, and 
read the volumes of reports and executive documents sent here to en- 
lighten us, can deny that I have stated truly the grounds assumed, 
in and out of Congress, by the conflicting parties on this subject. 
The very statement of the case is itself the best argument to show 
that gentlemen on the other side cannot maintain the position they 
have assumed. Unless there be some reason hidden below the sur- 
face as yet of all this discussion, which has, unperceived by all, 
wrought a mysterious conviction on the minds of gentlemen, there 
can be no difficulty in coming to a right decision of this question. I 
am fortified in this belief by the contradictory propositions assumed 
and defended in the report made to us by the Committee of Ways 
and Means. 

That committee, selected by the Chair for its financial abilities, 
and not by presumption, nor always in fact the ablest expounders of 
the Constitution, has, with great care, presented the House with a 
very elaborate view of the relative powers of Congress, and the Presi- 
dent, and the Secretary of the Treasury, under the Constitution. 

It sets out with the assertion that the power to select the place 
of deposit, and the person or persons who shall have the custody of 
the public moneys, always did and does now belong to the head of 
the Treasury, under the supervision and control of the Executive. 
The process of the argument is this: It is alleged in the report al- 
luded to that this power, under the old confederation, was considered 
an executive power, and as such was exerted by Congress; that, 
when the confederation gave place to the Constitution, "all executive 
power" (this being one) was transferred by the Constitution to the 
President, where, under that instrument, it still remains. The com- 
mittee, with a degree of industry much more commendable than the 



154 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

discrimination by which they seem to have been guided, in order to 
show the usage of former times to be conformable to their doctrines, 
have brought forward a variety of historical proofs and references. 
Mr. Speaker, it is no necessary part of my duty or purpose to con- 
trovert this position. However strange it may appear, the com- 
mittee have either abandoned or completely refuted it themselves in 
the same report, where with so much labor they asserted and en- 
deavored to establish it. Neither am I bound to account for these 
candid inconsistencies. Perhaps the committee may have thought it 
a kind of incumbent duty to maintain the dignity and honor of the 
Executive against the charge of usurpation. Having, however, dis- 
charged that duty to which they felt themselves forced by the violent 
impulses of the occasion, with most amiable partiality for Constitu- 
tional truth and sound political philosophy, they abandoned this 
ground, and now assert the power of Congress under the Constitu- 
tion to have been always (up to 1816) complete over the public 
moneys, and acknowledge themselves at a loss to find any good reason 
why the Congress of 1816 should then have transferred it to other 
hands. I beg leave to refer gentlemen who have not looked critically 
at this report to one or two paragraphs on the fifth page. From 
these it will be seen I have quoted them truly, and given to their 
language their own interpretation. 

In giving construction to the sixteenth section of the bank char- 
ter, passed by Congress in 1816, the committee say: "The eftect 
of the sixteenth section of the bank charter is to take from Congress 
entirely the power to control the public deposits, which that body 
betore possessed." Again, on the same page, they say: "Wheth- 
er the Congress acted wisely in thus divesting themselves of all con- 
trol over the places of public deposit of the public moneys for the 
long period of twenty years is a question which it is unnecessary to 
determine." These quotations prove (if language is any sign of 
ideas) that the committee considered it undeniable truth that in 
1816 Congress, by the Constitution, did possess legislative power 
over this subject, and that they divested themselves of that power by 
the act of 1816. In the first pages of their report, however, they 
have bestowed much labor to prove that Congress never did possess 
this power ; that, by the Constitution, it was confided to the Presi- 
dent as the head of the Executive department, this being one of the 
executive powers which, by the adoption of the Constitution, was 
among others transferred to that officer. 



ON THE PUBLIC DEPOSITS. 155 

Let us pause at this point for a moment while we examine the 
consequences, I can not say absurdities, (for that word, though one 
of "exceedingly good command" in our language, is not parliamen- 
tary) which flow from the various positions maintained, and most of 
them in turn abandoned or refuted, in the committee's report. 
First, it is asserted that the power over the deposits of the public 
moneys by the Constitution, being an executive power, belongs to 
the President, who is to exercise it through his agent, the Secretary 
of the Treasury. It follows that this power, if given to the Presi- 
dent, could not be exercised or controlled by Congress, unless the 
Constitution should be so changed as to give them such control, yet, 
in the succeeding pages of this same report, the committee find Con- 
gress in lawful possession of this power, but, as they insist, taking it 
away from themselves and giving it to the Secretary of the Treasury 
in the year 1816. If the first position be true, the second is certain- 
ly unfounded. Again, if the committee be right in the position that 
Congress in 1816 did possess complete control over the person who 
should keep and the place where the public moneys should be kept, 
and if this power was given them by the Constitution, could Con- 
gress, at its pleasure, change the Constitution and transfer that pow- 
er to another? The committee seem to think they could. When 
the committee speak of Congress "divesting" itself of a power held 
under the Constitution, I can only understand them by supposing 
they take it for granted that Congress, at its pleasure can, by law, 
transfer power from one branch of the Federal Government to an- 
other. This doctrine, sir, is new to me ; nor do I believe it has, as 
yet, obtained a very general credit with American statesmen. 

To this family of incongruities permit me, before I take my 
leave of them, to introduce a kindred fallacy of the Secretary of the 
Treasury. It will be found in what he calls his "reasons" for with- 
holding the public moneys from the Bank of the United States. It 
is this: He (the Secretary) asserts that the act of 1816, creating 
the bank, is unconstitutional. If so, it is inoperative and can confer 
no rights upon the bank — no powers upon any one. It leaves every 
subject it touches as though no law had been attempted to be enact- 
ed. Yet the Secretary himself and the committee, in their report, 
claim that this same act gives power to the Secretary of the Treasury 
to lay his hand upon the whole revenues of this nation and transfer 
them to persons and deposit them in places not authorized or desig- 
nated by law. Reason and law would tell us that if, as the commit- 



156 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

tee argue, Congress rightfully possessed this power in 1816, and if, 
as the committee and Secretary both agree, the attempt to vest it 
elsewhere resulted in passing an act unconstitutional, and therefore 
void, then the power remained where it was — that is to say, in Con- 
gress and not in the Secretary or the President; and the question 
may well be asked, by what law does the Secretary claim to possess 
himself of this high and transcendent power? Mr. Speaker, when I 
look at this ludicrous jumble of contradictions and remember that 
they are the joint product of the well-known, talented and accom- 
plished mind of the Secretary of the Treasury and the not less rich- 
ly-endowed intellect of the honorable chairman of the * ' Ways and 
Means," I see and acknowledge, in thankfulness of heart, the opera- 
tion of one of those laws which Infinite Wisdom has established for 
the government of the mind of man. Reason is given by God to 
man to guide him with certainty in the way of truth. That way is 
always straight ; it is plain and bright with the lights that ever burn 
around and along its borders. The path of error and sophistry is in 
the wilderness. Their course is mazy, devious and shrouded in dark- 
ness. Whenever bias or passion, therefore, perverts the understand- 
ing from the uses to which it was ordained by Him who gave it, as a 
penalty for its abuse, the wisdom of the wisest becomes folly, and, 
that it may deceive no one, is involved in difficulties and contradic- 
tions and ends in discomfiture and defeat. We have before us a case 
where this great moral truth is most strikingly exemplified. The 
Secretary of the Treasury, aided by the labors of the Committee of 
Ways and Means, with great toil and care erects a costly and mag- 
nificent and heathenish anti-republican temple. They cover its walls 
all over with inscriptions of monarchical dogmas and barbaric phrases 
alien to the dialects of democracy and not written in the republican 
"books of the law" delivered to us by our fathers. With equal toil 
and pains they then construct a monstrous Juggernaut and engrave 
upon his frontlet the magic words, "Executive Power." Him they 
enshrine with all the pomp of heathen idolatry. This done, they 
point to their idol and command us to "fall down and worship." 
Suddenly, however, the scene changes. While we stand wrapped in 
amazement at the vast dimensions of the structure, the builders of it 
themselves, impelled by a law of their nature, assault it with violence, 
and in a twinkling all is gone. The gorgeous temple, huge divinity 
and costly shrine are leveled together in the dust. 

I dismiss this topic. Its singular character has, I find, tempted 



ON THE PUBLIC DEPOSITS. 157 

me to pursue it much further than I had intended. I take it for 
granted, then, that we have estabhshed, by the admissions of the 
devotees of executive power themselves, that all power over the 
money of the people belongs to the people, through their represen- 
tatives in Congress; that it belongs immediately to Congress, who 
alone have power to "lay and collect taxes." 

It follows, as a necessary consequence, that whatever act the 
Secretary of the Treasury may do touching those "taxes," he must 
do it by virtue of some power derived from Congress. It follows 
with equal certainty that, being the agent of Congress, he is respon- 
sible to Congress, from whom he receives his power, for its faithful 
and intelligent execution. 

Let us now turn to the commission given by Congress to the 
Secretary touching the public moneys. It will be found in the 16th 
section of the bank charter of 1816 in these words: "The deposits 
of the moneys of the United States, in places in which the said bank 
and branches thereof may be established, shall be made in the said 
bank or branches thereof, unless the Secretary of the Treasury shall 
at any time otherwise order and direct, in which case the Secretary 
of the Treasury shall immediately lay before Congress, if in session, 
and if not, immediately after the commencement of the next session, 
the reasons of such order and direction." No one can doubt the 
character or object of the power here given. It is, in its character, 
a trust or discretionary power. Its objects were, first, the safety of 
the public treasure; secondly, it was intended to compel the bank to 
a faithful performance of its promise, to transmit without charge the 
moneys of the government to the places where they were required 
to be disbursed. If the bank should fail in either of these stipula- 
tions. Congress intended that the Secretary should have the power to 
find immediately other places of deposit and other disbursing agents. 
To enable the Secretary to discharge the delicate trust thus reposed 
in him, Congress provides in the same law "that the officer at the 
head of the Treasury department of the United States shall be fur- 
nished from time to time, as often as he may require, not exceeding 
once a week, with statements of the amount of the capital stock of 
the said corporation and of the debts due to the same; of the 
moneys deposited therein ; of the notes in circulation ; and of the 
specie in hand ; and shall have a right to inspect such general ac- 
counts on the books of the bank as shall relate to the said statement, 
provided, that this shall not be construed to imply a right of inspect- 



158 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

ing the account of any private individual or individuals with the 
bank." 

The last paragraph of this act contains an answer to every rea- 
son urged by the Secretary for removing the deposits from the Bank 
of the United States, It shows to what objects Congress designed 
to confine the power given to that officer over the public funds. All 
that the Secretary can know, from what the bank is bound to disclose 
to him in the weekly statement required to be furnished, relates to 
the solvency of the bank. It was intended to furnish the Secretary 
in this way with the means of executing the power given him to 
protect, the safety of the people's money. It will be observed that 
the Secretary is, in express words, denied the right to look into the 
"private accounts of individuals." With what pretense of plausibil- 
ity can it be contended, as it has been by the Secretary and President 
too, that improper accounts between the bank and certain printers, 
which can only be known by examining the "private accounts," 
form a reason or answer for the exercise of this power? The con- 
struction contended for by those who defend the Executive would 
make the Congress of 1816 confer, by law, large powers on their 
agent, and, in the same law, expressly deny him the power to ascer- 
tain those facts upon which alone he would be justified in using the 
power conferred. That Congress never intended to extend the 
power of the Secretary over the vast field of inquiry which, in the 
all-grasping spirit of the executive government, he has appropriated, 
is also evident from the powers over the bank reserved to Congress, 
■compared with those given and denied to the Secretary, to which last 
I have just adverted. By the 23d section of the charter it is pro- 
vided "that it shall at all times be lawful for a committee of either 
House of Congress, appointed for that purpose, to inspect the books 
and to examine into the proceedings of the corporation hereby cre- 
ated, and to report whether the provisions of this charter have been 
by the same violated or not." It then goes on to provide (in the 
event of a report by the committee of a violation of the charter) 
that a scire facias shall issue from the Circuit Court of the United 
States calling on the bank to show cause, etc. A jury of the coun- 
try, sworn and impaneled to try the cause, would then be the tribu- 
nal to which the subjec^t would be referred for decision. But this 
good old usage of our fathers did not comport with that scheme of 
compendious confiscation which had been resolved on. 

We have here on the face of the law the duties and powers re- 



ON THE PUBLIC DEPOSITS. 159 

quired to be done and exercised by the Secretary, and the subjects 
of inquiry which Congress reserved to itself and the courts and juries 
of the country. But the Secretary, with this law before him, backed 
or pushed forward by the President, takes all the powers of Congress 
and the courts into his own hand and gravely tells Congress that, by 
the law I have just quoted, he (whenever, in his opinion, "the pub- 
lic good or convenience required it,") could dismiss the bank as a de- 
pository of the public money and dissolve all connection of the Gov- 
ernment with that institution. In effect, he assumes, with a boldness 
unparalleled in any officer in a country of laws, to exercise execu- 
tive, legislative and judicial power; to forfeit charters held under the 
pledged faith of the nation; to seize upon rights guaranteed by all 
the solemnities of legislative enactment and fortified by all the 
strength of legislative power. 

Let us examine this modest assumption of the Secretary by an- 
other test. He insists that his power to dissolve all connection with 
the United States Bank is unlimited, except *'by his own discretion." 
If then, in his opinion, the bank was dangerous as a monopoly (for 
this is much insisted on); if it did not furnish a good currency; if 
State banks would be, in his opinion, more safe or convenient depos- 
itories of the public moneys; if the tendencies of the institution, in 
his or the President's opinion, would be unfriendly to the morals of 
the people ; then, in either of these cases, the Secretary of the Treas- 
ury could of his own proper authority, under the act of 1816, as to 
all public purposes, repeal the law itself Sir, is this to be tolerated? 
Were the men who composed the Congress of 1816 such miserable 
drivelers as this interpretation of their acts would make them? 
What objects had they in view in erecting the United States Bank ? 
Is any American citizen who can read so ignorant as not to know 
them? The Government had lost by State banks about fourteen 
hundred thousand dollars. It determined to create a bank as a place 
of safe-keeping of the people's money, which it could examine into 
and control in order to prevent future loss. The arguments for and 
against this institution were heard for three years in this hall prior to 
the final passage of the bank charter — its dangerous tendencies as a 
moneyed monopoly; its power over the politics of the country; the 
effect it would have on currency, trade and exchange, all were deba- 
ted with zeal and ability, which would have illustrated the history of 
any deliberative body that ever yet assembled anywhere upon earth. 
These various points of policy were all settled by Congress, the only 



160 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

power in a representative government which can take cognizance of 
such subjects. The act was passed; it received the President's ap- 
proval; it became a law for twenty years. Now the President and 
Secretary assert that this same Congress, by a clause in this same act, 
authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to sit down and examine 
whether Congress had acted wisely or not; whether a bank was a 
dangerous engine against liberty ; whether it would or would not be 
likely to exert a beneficial and wholesome influence upon trade and 
domestic or foreign exchange. If on reflection he should be of opin- 
ion that the public treasure could be more securely kept and trans- 
mitted from place to place by the State banks ; or if he in any of 
these particulars, relating to public policy, should differ with both 
branches of Congress and the President, he ( the Secretary ) should in 
that case repeal the law. Yes, sir, repeal the law. For the whole 
object of the bank charter was to make the bank created by it an 
agent of the Government. To give the Secretary a power to de- 
stroy that agency for any reason of a moral or political character, 
was, in substance, giving him a power to repeal and annul the whole 
law. Courtesy forbids me the use of terms proper to convey my 
ideas of such miserable inconsistency as this. This course of argu- 
ment makes the Congress of the United States, after years of anx- 
ious labor on a subject of vital interest *to the nation, throw together 
in the shape of law, not a well-ordered system of finance reaching, 
as all systems worth anything must do, forward with certain and 
steady operation into the future ; no, instead of this you make them 
heap together a disjointed jumble of crude conceptions and self-evi- 
dent contradictions, and then, in impotent despair, call upon the wis- 
dom and virtue and skill of a Secretary of the Treasury to review 
their policy and make or destroy their law at his pleasure. And this 
is called republican doctrine. This is modern democracy ! This is 
said to be the way of keeping power in the hands of the people, 
"the many," and denying sovereign sway to the few, or to one. 

Let us now turn to that view of the subject which regards the 
various provisions of the bank charter in the light of a contract. 

I am sure it needs no argument to prove to this House that a 
law which confers upon one or more persons certain rights, and im- 
poses on them certain duties to be performed, on the faith of which 
such persons invest their money, is, in its terms and nature, a com- 
pact. As such, for the term of its duration, all power given under it 



ON THE PUBLIC DEPOSITS. 161 

is irrevocable ; as a law, it is not capable of repeal ; as a contract, 
except in the mode pointed out by its provisions, it is indissoluble. 

The bank charter of 1816 proposes to all who would subscribe 
stock under its provisions, that they should possess the corporate 
powers specified in that act for the full term of twenty years. The 
stockholders, on their part, agree to pay to the United States a 
bonus of one million and a half of dollars ; to receive and keep safe, 
at their own risk, the revenues of the Government ; to transmit at 
their own risk, and without charge, the moneys of the Government 
to any point required for disbursement. In consideration of these 
arduous and responsible duties, and the payment of the bonus, the 
Government agrees, on its part, that the stockholders shall have the 
right to issue their notes, which shall be received in payment of all 
public dues, unless Congress shall otherwise direct by law. The 
bank shall have the benefit of the deposit of the public moneys du- 
ring the term of twenty years, unless the Secretary of the Treasury 
shall otherwise order and direct, for reasons which shall be approved 
(as I construe the law) by both branches of Congress. These are, 
in substance, the mutual solemn engagements between the Govern- 
ment of the United States and the stockholders of the United States 
Bank. I think it has been satisfactorily shown that the only reasons 
upon which the Secretary could remove the public moneys from the 
bank are, first, that they were unsafe in its custody; or, secondly, 
that the bank had failed or refused to transmit and pay them over as 
required by law. It is not pretended that our revenues are in dan- 
ger of being lost by the insolvency of the bank, nor am I aware that 
it has been suggested in debate that the bank has been delinquent in 
its engagements to transmit and pay them over at any point where 
the Government has had occasion to disburse them. The withdrawal 
from the bank of the deposits has, then, been made without any 
cause such as was contemplated by the charter and, consequently, in 
violation of the contract between the Government and the stockhold- 
ers of the bank. What is the position we occupy in the face of our 
country and the world? We have pledged the faith and honor of 
the nation, upon which pledge twenty-eight millions of money have 
been invested in a bank in which we are parties. Without any rea- 
son applicable to our contract, we have wantonly violated one of its 
vital and most essential stipulations. Fully sensible of the degrad- 
ing and loathsome character of the act we are considering, when 
viewed as a violation of contract, the sensitive and generous mind of 
12 



162 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Gilmer], as also that of his col- 
league [Mr. Schley] , have labored to rid the charter of all the at- 
tributes of a compact. They seem to suppose it absurd to imagine 
that a contract could be made binding in this instance, because one 
of the parties is a "corporation." Many of their remarks on this 
part of the subject resolve themselves into those quaint definitions of 
the qualities and faculties of a corporation in the old law books that 
treat of these subjects. Among other things it is said that a corpor- 
ation has no soul. Sir, there is black-letter authority enough for 
that. But the gentleman should have done justice to the ancient lu- 
minaries of the law, and told, further, that they only intended to say 
that a corporation, as such, could not commit a crime, and in its cor- 
porate capacity could not be punished as a criminal. Will gentle- 
men contend from this that no binding contract can be made with 
any number of persons who are thus incorporated? Does it follow 
that the various individuals who compose this artificial person with- 
out a soul, can, in its corporate character, have no civil rights? This 
course of argument would seem to affirm that a great nation, a 
proud republic, could pledge its faith to the performance of certain 
acts to a corporation which itself had created, and in good faith, 
without tarnishing its honor, at any time refuse to redeem its pledge, 
and allege as a justification, the ready plea, **you are a corporation — 
you have no soul." Excellent jurisprudence! admirable ethics! 
most amiable philosophy ! What a figure such a chapter would have 
made in the profound and eloquent volumes of Hooker! what luster 
it would have shed upon the morality of Paley ! It certainly never 
occurred to the great teachers of law or ethics that, because a corpor- 
ation could not, as such, commit murder, nor yet itself be subject to 
that crime, therefore it followed, from reason irrefragable, that it was 
lawful and right to rob it ; that, as it could not, in its corporate char- 
acter, commit a crime, and would, therefore, escape punishment in 
the next world, reason, equity and the eternal fitness of things re- 
quired that it should be visited with confiscation in this. Of a char- 
acter closely allied to this, in its moral tendency, is that class of ar- 
guments which treats the contract in the bank charter as a promise 
liable to be performed or broken, according to the fluctuating opin- 
ions of those who might hold, for the time being, the political power 
necessary to its faithful execution. Is this the light in which mod- 
ern morality and law have taught us to consider national obligations 
and national honor? Does a change of power from one political 



ON THE PUBLIC DEPOSITS. 163 

party to those of another political faith absolve the latter from all 
obligations contracted by the former? Sir, within the last four years 
the long-exiled Bourbon has paid us for spoliations committed on 
our commerce by revolutionary France. The present King of Na- 
ples has remunerated our citizens for injuries sustained by them at 
the hands of Joachim Murat. Such, sir, is the universal law of good 
faith which descends and attaches upon all who, in the process of 
time, however remote, succeed to the political power of Government. 

It is this faith-keeping principle in States and individuals that 
holds together the moral elements of the world. It is superior to, 
and controls, all human will. Its obligations are paramount to all 
human control. It is a law of perpetual obligation, from which 
neither States nor individuals can absolve themselves ; it is felt in the 
hearts of men ; it does not derive its origin from society ; it is the 
parent and origin of all social existence ; it is the principle of the 
honest man, the honor of the gentleman, the chivalry of the brave 
man, the piety of the good man, the glory of a nation. 

Mr. Speaker, if this act of the Secretary is in itself wrong, be- 
ing founded in palpable injustice toward the bank, it is not less con- 
demnable as being unwise and inexpedient as a measure of public 
policy. Though I by no means admit that what the Secretary calls 
"his reasons" are, in a single instance, such as to form even an 
apology for his conduct, yet it is only respectful toward him to be- 
stow a passing notice upon some of them. He sets out with the 
declaration that the people of the United States had declared that 
the charter of the present bank should not be renewed. This is put 
forward as the basis upon which he felt himself compelled to act. 
In a matter effecting in the tenderest point the interest and business 
and property of a nation, we should expect, from ordinary prudence, 
great certainty in ascertaining facts necessary to be known, before 
consequences so momentous were encountered. The evidence of the 
existence of such facts should not be conjectural or equivocal, but 
such as could leave no doubt — such as would extort conviction from 
the mind. What then, was this proof, think you, of a decision by 
the people that the bank should cease to exist? It was this: Gen- 
eral Jackson was re-elected to the presidency in November, 1832, 
and he was not a friend of the bank ! Here is the direct, positive, 
overwhelming evidence of the sense of a nation, as the Secretary 
supposes, on a simple isolated question concerning the renewal of a 
charter. What a compliment to the President ! He is, by this view 



164 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

of the election, represented as being chosen to preside over the re- 
pubHc, not for his profound knowledge of civil polity in all its com- 
plex and multiform ramifications ; not for his acquaintance with our 
diplomatic history; not for his large and comprehensive views of the 
rising and future destinies of this flourishing republic ; not for his 
great renown in arts or arms ; no, none of these. He was, accord- 
ing to the view of it, clothed with the highest honor mortal man can 
confer, simply and only because he did not like a certain corporation 
in the city of Philadelphia, of which one Nicholas Biddle was the 
president. Sir, I can find a hundred men at work on the canal about 
this city before sunset that have the same qualification for the high 
office of chief magistrate of the republic, if opposition to a banking 
corporation is to be the sole and exclusive test of merit. The peo- 
ple of this country will no longer be fit to be trusted with the elec- 
tion of their President, when they make that election turn upon a 
single supposed opinion of their candidate touching one only of the 
great variety of subjects upon which that officer is obliged to act. 
For the reputation of the President, for the character of my coun- 
trymen, I trust this opinion expressed by the Secretary, and in an- 
other document asserted by the President himself, will be repudiated 
by this House. I know it will be rejected with indignation by the 
enlightened freemen of the country as a reflection upon their intelli- 
gence. 

But, sir, I deny that the President ever expressed to the people 
an tinqiialiiicd declaration against the renewal of the charter of the 
United States Bank. I know that he refused his approval to the bill 
for that purpose passed in 1832 ; but do we not all know that among 
other things in his message to Congress on that subject, the Presi- 
dent distinctly asserts the power of Congress to create a bank, and 
plainly intimates his willingness to aid them in doing so? Let his 
own language speak for him: "That a Bank of the United States, 
competent to all the duties which may be required by the govern- 
ment, might be so organized as not to infringe on our own delegated 
powers, or the reserved rights of the States, / do not enter taiii a doubt. 
Had the Executive been called upon to furnish the project of such 
an institution, the duty would have been cheerfully performed. In 
the absence of such a call it is obviously proper that he should con- 
fine himself to pointing out those prominent features in the act pre- 
sented, which, in his opinion, make it incompatible with the Consti- 
tution and sound policy." Here we have a distinct annunciation by 



ON THE PUBLIC DEPOSITS. 165 

the President, that a bank might be created which would answer all 
public purposes; of this he says he "does not entertain a doubt," 
and that if called upon, he would cheerfully furnish the project of 
such an institution. This, sir, in that portion of the country within 
the rano-e of my immediate observation, was seized upon by the 
President's friends at his last election to show that he would yet fur- 
nish to the country a bank. He, and he alone, it would seem, had 
made the discovery of some project concerning currency and treas- 
ury agency, which the wisdom of the wisest for the last fifty years 
had sought for in vain. The country has patiently waited the re- 
demption of this pledge for two years. Still some of his friends 
cry, "Patience, it will yet be brought forth." Great mystery is af- 
fected and no one ventures to say precisely what it will resemble ; 
yet still it will be, it is said, when it does come, just what all desire. 
Deep in the recesses of executive wisdom they tell us this grand se- 
cret is hidden. That which escaped the anxious search of Washing- 
ton, Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, and all the Secretaries of the 
Treasury for forty years, had been discovered by the present chief 
magistrate, and surely it would not be withheld from the world. It 
was suddenly to spring from the pregnant head of the Executive 
like another Minerva from the head of Jove — the impersonation of 
wisdom armed from head to foot, covered all over with the panoply 
of the Constitution, graced with all the amiable facilities of bank 
credit and sound currency, and endowed, in an especial manner, 
with the energies and security of a proper treasury agent. This, 
sir, is what was decided upon by the people in the election of the 
President; this was what they were promised; they relied on that 
promise. Sir, it had that quality which always commends itself to 
our credence ; to say the least of it, it was modest. 

Two years have elapsed, and the expecting world still waits in 
hope of the grand development. Whether we are to die "without 
the sight" is among those future events which the curtain of time 
(perhaps fortunately for us) still conceals from mortal scrutiny. I 
take it for granted that the rickety, misshapen imp, lately born of a 
forbidden concubinage between executive assumption and State bank 
prostitution, which we now see mewling and puking in the arms of 
the Committee of Ways and Means, is not to be palmed upon us for 
that '^cara Dewn soboles" \h2X ''magnum Jovis incremeniiim,'" which 
the world has so long been promised. 

Mr. Speaker, let us examine some other of our recollections of 



166 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

subjects agitated, and, by presumption, supposed to have been de- 
cided by the people in the election of President. Prior to the elec- 
tion of 1829, nothing, touching the opinions of the candidates, 
formed a more decisive test in the Western States than the "tariff 
and internal improvement." So anxious were the people of that sec- 
tion of the country to be well informed on this subject, that the Leg- 
islature of Indiana authorized their Governor to open a correspon- 
dence with General Jackson, then a candidate, in order to have rec- 
ord proof of his principles touching the measures to which I have 
referred. What followed ? In a reply to the Governor, a letter ad- 
dressed to a gentleman in the South and votes given in the other 
branch of Congress were referred to, but nothing explicit beyond 
these could be learned. This, however, was received by the good- 
natured people of Indiana as full proof of the General's friendship 
to a protective system of duties and liberal expenditure of public 
money upon roads and canals. Now, sir, if we can trust at all the 
newspapers of that day, we know that this same letter and these 
Senatorial votes were referred to in the South as furnishing very sat- 
isfactory evidence of the same gentleman's hostility to both tariff 
and internal improvement. 

With these examples of the dubious character of any evidence 
of public will, derived from the agitation of any subject in elections, 
we should have expected the highly-cultivated legal mind of the Sec- 
retary to hesitate in receiving that sort of proof as satisfactory in 
any manner involving deeply the public interest. Our astonishment 
increases when we hear the President himself, with all the facts to 
which I have adverted fresh in his memory, make the declaration 
that his election in 1832 is to be received as a decision of the people 
that the bank is not to be re-chartered. Another reason, as it is 
called, much insisted on is equally without foundation in fact. It is 
amusing, if not vexatious, to observe the freedom with which both 
the Secretary and the Committee of Ways and Means draw upon the 
credulity of Congress and the people. They propose to destroy the 
United States Bank, and employ as treasury agents some hundreds 
of State banks throughout the Union, for the purpose — ( mark the 
object in view!) — for the purpose of " bringing back the currency 
where the sages who formed the Constitution found and left it." 
Where did the much-abused and misrepresented sages who formed 
the Constitution find the currency? The mists of antiquity have not 
yet settled down upon the period referred to so heavily as to obscure 



ON THE PUBLIC DEPOSITS. 167 

from our vision the men and the deeds of that day. T\\Q.y found the 
currency made up of "continental money" and "bills of credit" is- 
sued by the several States of the then confederacy. Is this, then, 
the kind of currency which the patriots and philanthropists of the 
present day intend to give us? Where, again I ask, did the sages 
who formed the Constitution leave the currency? Let us look 
somewhat minutely into this portion of our history. I shall be will- 
ing to go with gentlemen in any measure which will give us just 
such a currency as the sages who formed the Constitution left us. 
The convention that formed the Constitution was composed of thirty- 
nine members, including General Washington, its presiding officer. 
Of the thirty-eight members who signed the Constitution in 1787, 
sixteen were members of Congress under the Constitution in the 
year 1791, when the first United States Bank was chartered; twelve 
of these sixteen voted for that bank, and four against it. Among 
those who voted against it was Mr. Madison, who afterward, in 
1816, yielded his objections and approved the charter of the present 
bank. General Washington in 1791 was President of the United 
States, and approved the establishment of the bank. General Ham- 
ilton was then Secretary of the Treasury, and recommended it. 
Here, then, we have the recorded opinions of eighteen of the thirty- 
nine who signed the Constitution ; fifteen of these were in favor of the 
Bank of the United States, and three against it. But, sir, this is not 
all. We are informed by those still living, who knew well the opin- 
ions of those other sages who formed the Constitution, who were 
not in the Congress of 1791, that seventeen of them were in favor 
of the Bank of the United States, as then established. The opin- 
ions of those who formed the Constitution, as to currency, would 
then stand thus: Thirty-two in favor of a Bank of the United 
States, and seven against it. It was a currency, regulated, con- 
trolled and created by the Bank of the United States, which the 
sages who formed the Constitution "left us." From the year 1791 
to the present hour, more than forty years, excepting four years of 
derangement, disaster and ruin, (from 1811 to 1816, when we had 
no United States Bank,) we have had tJiat currency, and now we are 
told, with apparent candor, too, that by abolishing the Bank of the 
United States, and giving to one hundred State banks twenty mill- 
ions of public money annually to issue bank-notes upon, we shall 
bring back such a currency as the sages of 1791 gave us; that we 
shall, in this way, restore the currency to the condition in which the 



168 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

immortal authors of the Constitution left it. I have neither time 
nor temper to animadvert further upon this attempt to bolster up the 
miserable schemes and shifts of this day, dignified with the name of 
plans, by authorities drawn irom the earlier portion of our constitu- 
tional history. It can only succeed by mistaking the authority, or 
by a gross misunderstanding of historical facts. 

When we shall have broken up the present system of things, 
what does the Secretary, what do the committee, propose to give us 
in its stead? Shall we have a better circulating medium? They 
propose to give us, instead of United States Bank bills, the notes of 
State banks. More than four hundred of these now exist in the dif- 
ferent States. Their notes are selling at the brokers' offices in differ- 
ent parts of the Union, at a discount varying from two to ten per 
cent, at this moment. Two years ago, when war was declared 
against the present Bank of the United States, we were told that all 
banks were to be put down. They were all then monopolies, dan- 
gerous to liberty, and the destruction of paper currency and the res- 
toration of coin were then begun. This was then the confident as- 
sertion of a portion of the party now in power. Let the history of 
that party, in the Legislatures of the States since that time, speak 
for itself. In Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, what has it done? 
Why, sir, in order to banish bank paper and restore coin they com- 
menced a clamor for State banks, and in my own State have, since 
1832, incorporated four millions of State bank capital. This has 
been done by that very party who are to bring back gold and silver 
currency by destroying banks. The same scene has been acted by 
the same class of politicians in all the Western States. It is now a 
well-known fact, that since the message of the President was promul- 
gated, putting his veto on the United States Bank charter of 1832, 
more than forty millions of bank capital have been incorporated in 
the different States in the Union. Such is the progress already 
made toward restoring gold and silver currency. I venture now the 
prediction that, if the United States Bank, or some similar institu- 
tion, be not established, you will, before the lapse of five years, see 
twice the number of State banks now in existence. Their notes will 
be flying everywhere, thick as the leaves of the forest in an autum- 
nal hurricane, and about as valuable. 

But suppose your league of Treasury banks should succeed in 
establishing their credit so as to give general currency to their pa- 
per ; will not those banks in that way, by loans and exchanges, gain 



ON THE PUBLIC DEPOSITS. 169 

the same power and control over the business and trade of the coun- 
try, which, you say, is now possessed by the United States Bank — 
that dangerous power, for the possession of which, you say, it must be 
aboHshed? And what is gained by the exchanging one for the other? 
What will your condition be when your league banks shall be able to 
crush, if they choose, the trade of the country? Can you strike 
them out of existence? No! over them or their charters you have 
no control. The State Legislatures gave them life, and will, at their 
pleasure, prolong their existence. Suppose their charters expire; 
they are your Treasury agents ; they will then be indispensable to 
your system of finance. Will they consent to expire? Will not 
the stockholders in them be just as anxious for a renewal of their 
charters as the owners of stock in the United States Bank now are 
fcir a renewal of theirs ? Yes, sir, they will, and they will be just as 
little scrupulous about the means employed to obtain their end. 
This image with a hundred heads, which you are now erecting, will 
be just as difficult to destroy as the monster you profess so much to 
fear. The impure priesthood of Mammon will clamor just as loudly 
for their hundred-headed idol god as do those now whom you pro- 
fess to regard with so much horror. You will find, when the discov- 
ery will be too late, that possessing stock in a State bank does not of 
itself make a Cato, nor owning the same property in the United 
States Bank convert a good citizen into a Cataline. 

There is another view of the dangerous connection between the 
Executive Government here and the banks of the States, which I 
cannot pass without notice. If your scheme ever does succeed, if it 
works well in your fiscal affairs at all, it will of course be desirable 
to continue it in steady operation for a long time to come. But 
there will be obstacles to this. The charters of some of your banks 
will terminate. The Secretary of the Treasury will, of course, de- 
sire to have these charters renewed by the Legislatures of the States 
in which they are situated. To effect this the influence of the bank 
will be first exerted on the Treasury department here, by offering to 
do your business on very advantageous terms ; the Secretary of the 
Treasury, with the aid of the power, popularity and influence of the 
President for the time being, will bear down upon your State Legis- 
latures ; one vote, or two, or three, may, perhaps, decide the fate of 
your bank. Will not those votes be secured? Yes, the whole pat- 
ronage of the Federal Government in this scheme, from time to 
time, will be tempted into the Legislative halls of the States. We 



170 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

have heard much of consoHdation ; much of the danger of merging- 
the independence of the States in the overwhelming power of the 
Federal Government. If the wit of man were tasked to invent a 
cunning, insidious plan, by which this ruin might be wrought, he 
could not devise one more likely to effect his diabolical purpose than 
that proposed in this treasury invention. Give the Executive the 
power to confer favors on so many different companies of men, who 
also stand closely connected with the State Governments, and you 
have so many centripetal forces, drawing, by the resistless influence 
of pecuniary interest, the independence of the States into the vortex 
of federal control. These twenty-four stars, that now shine with 
such mild and pure luster, will be drawn from their spheres and their 
lights quenched forever in the superior blaze of one great central sun. 
If these consequences do not come upon us, it will be because 
the States will not suffer themselves to be beguiled into your Treas- 
ury snare. Judging from what has already transpired, we may hope 
the good sense and patriotism of the States in this, as in other in- 
stances, may yet preserve this great confederacy from the fatal ef- 
fects of a mad and ruinous policy. Three States have already re- 
fused to enter into this unholy alliance. Virginia, ever watchful of 
the approaches of federal usurpation, permitted your Treasury to so- 
journ a few weeks with her citizens ; but, finding you had sent a foul 
leprosy into her borders, although justly renowned for her hospital- 
ity, ordered her people to shut their doors upon you, and it was 
done. Kentucky, not less famed for the generous confidence she 
extends to strangers that come to her — Kentucky, who has a ready 
welcome for every friend, and a grave for every foe — she, too, tried 
your society for a brief space ; and, finding her health poisoned by 
your pestiferous touch, drove you back into your own territories. 
Pennsylvania, too, meek, temperate and forbearing as was the spirit 
of her illustrious founder — she who receives the comfortless and dis- 
tressed of every kindred, caste and clime under heaven, who cher- 
ishes all that take refuge in the ever-expanded arms of her compre- 
hensive urbanity — good old Pennsylvania, who, like that divine char- 
ity spoken of by the apostle, "vaunteth not herself, is not puffed 
up, hopeth all things, believeth all things," she, too, finding only 
bankruptcy, poverty and want in your society, yielded reluctantly to 
stern necessity, and pronounced the doom of banishment upon you. 
Happy experiment ! profound policy ! what admirable contrivance in 
the plan ! what perfect order, harmony and success in its execution ! 



ON THE PUBLIC DEPOSITS. 171 

How proud is the condition of your Treasury under the influence of 
this grand experiment ! With a certificate of good character in its 
hand, signed by the chief magistrate of the nation, it is driven forth 
from Virginia, banished from Kentucky, exiled from Pennsylvania. 
It is, at this moment, a wandering mendicant, begging in vain for a 
place whereon to rest the soles of its weary feet ; like the hapless son 
of Hagar, driven forth from the patriarchal roof, and if report be 
true, his "bread" quite gone and his "bottle of water" well nigh 
expended. If you permit him to remain much longer upon the des- 
ert, like Ishmael, he will be compelled to sustain a wandering and 
precarious existence by rapine and plunder. He will "turn his 
hand against every man," and "every honest man's hand will be 
turned against him." 

Is there an American bosom that is not pained, with mingled 
shame and indignation, at the present degraded condition of our 
country? What ultimate or present good is to result from what has 
been done? None, no, none; but evil — only continual disaster. 
What else can we expect? Perfidy in the Government will result, as 
it ought, in poverty to the people. We have not even the common 
motive of the felon ; we could not be said to have acted in this in- 
stance from the love of gain. In the mere wanton or malignant 
consciousness of power, we have stained the national honor, violated 
national faith; we have taught the people to disobey the injunctions 
of law by permitting an unchecked example of its violation by that 
very power whose ordained duty it is to maintain and enforce it. 
Let us not deceive ourselves. Let us not flatter each other with the 
expectation, that this will be a solitary instance of Executive en- 
croachment. No, history teaches us other lessons. That power 
that can subvert ancient usages, break with impunity national com- 
pacts, efface at will written laws, uproot the firm foundations of the 
Constitution, that power, if not suddenly arrested, will survive all 
that it destroys, and maintain itself in absolute dominion, by those 
very arts and instruments through which it required its first mo- 
mentum. 

" 'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past, 

First freedom, and then — glory ; when that fails, 

Wealth, vice, corruption — barbarism at last." * 

* As if to verify this prediction, in a few days after these remarks were made ia 
the House, the President sent his celebrated protest to the Senate, claiming for himself 
just enough power to carry into effect "his will," be that what it may. 



172 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

When we review the history of the last few months, and see the 
strange mixture of confusion and systematic effort, all tending to 
bring upon the people lasting injury, and are told that all this must 
be borne because "the people themselves willed it should be so," I 
cannot but remind the Executive Government and gentlemen here of 
instances in which they have disregarded that will, when it was fully 
and fairly understood. 

Prior to the presidential election in 1828 the present chief mag- 
istrate, then a Senator in Congress from Tennessee, in his letter of 
resignation to the Tennessee Legislature, held the following excellent 
■doctrines. Speaking of a contemplated alteration of the Constitu- 
tion, he says: "I would impose a provision rendering any member 
of Congress ineligible to office under the General Government dur- 
ing the term for which he was elected, and for two years thereafter. 
But if this change in the Constitution shall not be made, and impor- 
tant appointments continue to devolve on the Representatives in 
Congress, it requires no depth of thought to be convinced that cor- 
ruption will become the order of the day, and that, under the garb 
of conscientious sacrifice to establish precedents for the public good, 
evils of serious importance to the freedom and prosperity of the 
republic may arise." Do any of us forget the flame of enthusiasm 
which these sentiments kindled in the ardent and confiding hearts 
of the freemen of this country? In the election of General Jackson, 
they looked forward to the establishment of all these excellent prin- 
ciples as cardinal maxims in his administration. The most extrava- 
gant anticipations of great benefits were confidently indulged. Could 
such a man, with such pure principles, be placed in the executive 
chair, a sun bright with millenial glory would, it was said, dawn upon 
the republic never to go down. All grievances would be redressed; 
all tears would be wiped from all eyes; his administration, com- 
pared with all others, would be 

" An era of sweet peace 'midst bloody annals ; 
A green spot in the desert of past centuries." 

Were these fond and fanciful hopes realized? The election of 
1828 ended in the success of the man who, by propagating those 
doctrines, had made himself the idol of the people's hearts. How, 
sir, was this generous confidence requited? No sooner was he 
firmly seated on the throne of power, than, as if to show his scorn 
for popular credulity, he boldly marched into the Senate and took its 
members away to make his cabinet council. This House was liter- 



ON THE PUBLIC DEPOSITS. 173 

ally emptied to fill places made vacant by removal ; not one, or two, 
or three, but whole squadrons of members were marched off to be 
made the subjects of reward, from foreign ministers of the highest 
grade down to petty clerkships in the executive departments. Grat- 
itude for friends and revenge for foes ; the maxims of Sylla were 
openly avowed as the doctrines upon which executive patronage was 
to be dispensed. I shall not soon forget an instance of reward and 
punishment which created, at the time, not merely astonishment, but 
strong indignation, in Ohio. General Harrison was a native son of 
Virginia. In his nineteenth year (I believe being then a lieutenant 
in the army) he was selected by General Wayne as one of his aids 
in the memorable campaign of 1794, which terminated the war with 
the Indian tribes of the northwest. At a very early age he was 
chosen a delegate to Congress from the Northwestern Territory, and 
subsequently made Governor of the Territory of Indiana. After 
the disastrous campaign of Hull in 1812 he was selected by the 
Government to command those noble Kentucky and Ohio volun- 
teers, who thronged in thousands to the tented field, to redeem the 
sinking fortunes of war. My gallant friend from Kentucky [Colonel 
Johnson] won those unfading laurels, to which time only adds fresh 
verdure, fighting under the immediate eye and command of Harri- 
son at the ever-memorable battle of the Thames. At the close of 
the war General Harrison resigned his commission, and, in the spirit 
of the example of Cincinnatus, retired to his farm in Ohio. From 
thence he was soon called by the legislature of that State to a seat in 
the Senate. Such a citizen was thought by the administration then 
in power a fit representative of this government at the capital of the 
Colombian republic. He had not been friendly to the election of 
General Jackson. In one month, I believe, after the inauguration of 
the latter, and before General Harrison was known to have reached 
Bogota, his place of destination, he was recalled, and a member 
(then) of this House, a warm, active, industrious, powerful friend of 
the new President appointed in his place. Thus the active, useful 
friend was rewarded ; the opponent punished. 

After all this forgetfulness of pledges given and public will ex- 
pressed, when the President, and his friends for him, allege that he 
has taken the custody of the public money from a long-tried and 
faithful agent, because it is the people's will, I must be pardoned 
while I doubt. Sir, if I had that faith which could remove moun- 



174 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

tains, I should still hesitate to believe the sincerity of this declar- 
ation. 

Mr, Speaker, no opinion, no principle is in this country so uni- 
versally well received by the people as that which teaches public ser- 
vants the duty of redeeming, when in office, pledges given when 
candidates for office. It is right, it is proper that it should be so. 
It is the compact between the servant and his employer and should 
be fulfilled by the former, at all times, with scrupulous fidelity. The 
great importance of this operative principle, in a representative gov- 
ernment, will excuse me to the House for calling their attention to 
another flagrant instance of its violation, by one who now professes 
to make it the ground and cause of his late extraordinary movement 
upon the bank and treasury of the United States. 

When the present Executive first took his seat in the Presi- 
dential chair, he announced to the people, in his inaugural address, 
his determimation to reform a great variety of existing evils in the 
administration of public affairs. Among other things, high on the 
list of these reformations, was inscribed "the duty of reforming 
those abuses which had brought the patronage of the Federal Gov- 
ernment to bear on the freedom of elections."* The interpretation 
of this was simple and well understood. It implied that officers 
holding their places under the general government, had used their 
influence and employed their time in the business of electioneering. 
It avowed a determination to dismiss from service all such, and to 
make it a rule in all future appointments that none should receive or 
hold office. This was applauded and everywhere received as the 
first bright gleam of that millenial glory that had been so confidently 
foretold by the friends of the President during the canvass prior to 
the election of 1828. 

Passing by other examples of the operation of this reform, I 
refer, with unaffected pain, to one which lately occurred in my own 
State. On the 8th of January last a convention, under the general 
denomination of the "friends of the present administration," assem- 
bled at Columbus, in the State of Ohio. Its object was to appoint 
delegates to represent the "party" in a proposed national conven- 
tion, which was to be convened in May, 1835, to nominate a succes- 
sor to General Jackson. This convention of the "friends of the 
present administration " was composed of one hundred and seventy- 

* See Inaugural Address of President Jackson, Appendix. 



ON THE PUBLIC DEPOSITS. 175 

seven persons. Of these seventy-one were office-holders under the 
Federal and State Governments. A gentleman holding the office of 
district judge for the district of Ohio under appointment of the Pres- 
ident, not yet confirmed by the Senate, in his character of a "cen- 
tral committeeman," called a meeting (by advertisement in a public 
newspaper) of the "friends of the administration" in a particular 
county for the purpose of naming delegates to this convention at 
Columbus. All these things are matters of public notoriety. The 
convention, among other things, constituted a "central committee," 
with electioneering jurisdiction co-extensive with the territorial limits 
of the State. Of this committee, composed (according to my recol- 
lection ) of seven persons, five are officers holding appointments 
under the Executive : One district attorney ; two receivers of public 
moneys ; one surveyor of the Virginia military lands, and one post- 
master. 

The proceedings of this convention have "been published in the 
official journal in this city, and cannot have escaped the notice of 
the President. Can a case be imagined more proper for the applica- 
tion of that reform power which the President at his installation into 
office had promised the people to exert with such unsparing fidelity? 
Where slept the executive thunders while these iniquities were trans- 
piring? Has one of those federal officers been removed, or even 
censured, for "bringing the patronage and influence of the Govern- 
ment to bear upon elections?" No. All is tranquil and placid. 
The arm of executive vengeance is not lifted against the offender. 
The brow of power is not even clouded by a frown of disapproba- 
tion. After such forgetfulness, not only of pledges given, but also 
of the expressed will of the people derived from elections, in which 
this subject of official influence upon popular elections was agitated 
all over the Union, I cannot hear with patience the "people's will" 
put forward as a reason for violating law; taking away chartered 
rights ; deranging the currency ; destroying trade, and sinking in the 
great "Serbonian bog" of "executive power" all the Constitutional 
functions of Congress and the judicial courts. 

Finding, after a fruitless search, no reason for the act of which 
we complain, founded in law or expediency, or any dictate of public 
necessity, but, on the contrary, finding, as the experiment has 
evinced, every consideration of duty and patriotism opposed to it, 
how shall we account for it ? We are driven to the necessity of re- 



176 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

sorting to reasons and motives for the act, which are not clearly set 
forth in any official document. 

We know that the President has, for some two or three years, 
felt and expressed a deep and settled hostility to the United States 
Bank. We know that he and his friends believed that certain indi- 
viduals connected with the bank were not friendly to his election and 
did not yield unqualified approbation to some of his public acts. A 
resolution, we are told by Mr. Duane, was formed to crush this sup- 
posed opponent; Congress, at its last session, had been appealed to 
for this purpose, but, instead of adopting a course like that taken 
since by the President, that body, composed of a large majority of 
his political friends, by a vote of more than two to one, resolved 
that the public moneys were safe in the Bank of the United States, 
and ought to remain there. What was to be done ? The bank must be 
crushed, and Congress had refused to become its executioner. Two 
or three months prior to the meeting of this Congress, the Secretary 
of the Treasury is required to remove the public moneys to the 
State banks. He declined, and offered as his reasons the vote of 
the last Congress and the near approach of the meeting of this ; that 
the subject properly belonged to Congress, and to them it ought to 
be submitted. What was the reply of the President? I will give it 
upon the authority and in the words of Mr. Duane's letter: "If the 
last Congress had remained a week longer in session, two-thirds 
would have been secured to the bank by corrupt means, and that the 
like result might be apprehended at the next Congress. That such 
a State bank agency must be put into operation before the meeting 
of Congress, as would show that the United States Bank was not 
necessary ; and thus some members would have no excuse for voting 
for it." I cannot here, sir, stoop to the consideration of these sug- 
gestions of corrupt influence upon the representatives of the people. 
Let that people determine whether the servants of their own free 
choice are capable of acting from the diabolical motives attributed to 
them. I have mistaken the character of my countrymen, or they 
will treat such imputations upon the emanations of their own en- 
lightened and free suffrage as the insane ravings of unchastened am- 
bition, or the equally idle suggestions of unbridled revenge. If this 
history of the transactions of the last summer be true, what is the 
conclusion? The corruptibility of Congress is imagined as a reason 
for transferring their powers and duties to the hands of the Execu- 
tive. Thus, purity of motive in the President would apologize for a 



ON THE PUBLIC DEPOSITS. 177 

revolution of the Government. Sir, this is not the first instance in 
which the fears and patriotic prejudices of the people have been as- 
sailed for the purpose of eiTecting this favorite measure — the destruc- 
tion of the bank. 

There exists in the minds of the American people a watchful 
jealousy of foreign influence in our political affairs. Two years ago 
this jealousy was roused to a degree of fanaticism that became in its 
height absolutely ridiculous. It was found that nearly eight millions 
of stock in the United States Bank v/ere owned by foreigners. I 
shall not soon forget the parade made in this hall and elsewhere of 
the list of names of those foreign stockholders. Many of them, it 
was found, were females. Nothing could exceed the patriotic rage 
and horror depicted in the fierce gestures, distorted countenances 
and fervid declamations of those who had all at once discovered that 
the liberties of America were sold to the women of England ! Had 
they been only simple, plain gentlewomen, it seemed the danger 
would not have been so appalling ; but there were countesses, mar- 
chionesses, and, it was suspected, even a duchess ! This was not to 
be borne. A countess, it was clear, could at once put an end to 
State rights ; and a duchess — a duchess could swallow the whole con- 
federacy at a meal ! All the foes of the bank, with the President 
himself, trembled at the peril which impended over us. In the zeal 
and fervid enthusiasm which the occasion inspired, these female 
stockholders were depicted as a grizzly host of amazons, leagued and 
armed for the destruction of the last hope of liberty ; ready, and just 
now about to bear down upon and crush us at a blow ; not as their 
renowned ancestress, Boadicea of old, made war upon the legions of 
Claudius, with brand, and bill, and bow, and spear, and battle-ax, 
but with Weapons more sharp and deadly — with pounds, shillings 
and pence. A host was marshaled to beat back this feminine inva- 
sion. From every quarter, but chiefly from New York, recruits 
thronged in thousands and took the field, resolved to drive out this 
foreign female invading foe, or, as became men, to die in the glori- 
ous attempt. The President, as usual, took the command. The 
American eagle erected his head and spread his wings abroad, not 
with that glorious motto, '' E Phiribus Umnn,'''' which had floated 
with him in triumph over many a red field of slaughter, but with 
another, which suited better the character and objects of the war. 
Just under his wing, and concealed from all but the keen eye of 
rapacity, might be seen these memorable words — "Spoils of Vic- 
13 



178 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

tory. " Thus bannered and equipped, with vetoes for weapons and 
"British booty and British beauty" for their war-cry, they took the 
field. Who could doubt the result ? As was expected, the she-aris- 
tocracy of England capitulated to the mailed chivalry of America 
without risking a battle, and marched home without loss of baggage. 
Have any of us forgotten the shout of triumph that pealed over the 
continent ? "A nation was redeemed from the iron yoke of foreign 
oppression." Twelve millions of freemen, just ready to be sold for 
eight millions of dollars — just about to be knocked off at $1.50 a 
head — are now forever free ! But, alas ! who can fathom the depths 
of the future? Who could have foreseen the sad reverses that were 
to befall this victorious host? In the agitations of this war upon for- 
eign capital, commerce furled up her sail ; the hand of industry was 
paralyzed ; labor wanted employment, and public credit shivered on 
the brink of bankruptcy. Now the scene changes ! Where now is 
that American eagle so lately flying in triumph over the ranks of 
war? His wing folded up, his eye glazed and sunk with hunger, 
you send him abroad to peck and beg about the den of the British 
lion, for a morsel that may fall from the jaws of the royal beast, to 
keep him alive. Pennsylvania begs of the foreign banker, Roths- 
child, a few millions to pay her honest debts ; and New York, fore- 
most in the war against foreign capital and foreign influence, offers a 
mortgage of her state to those very old women of England for six 
millions of foreign gold to make safe her "safety fund." Sir, I 
hope, nay, I doubt not, they will succeed. These fierce countesses 
and fat duchesses will relent and yield them the desired boon. The 
chivalry, so lately displayed by those who solicit it, must prevail, for 
valor is ever potent to subdue the obduracy of the female heart. To 
this ridiculous issue have come the outcry and war waged against 
foreign capital. It would be a tempting theme for pleasantry, were 
it not associated with misfortune, disaster and ruin to a confiding 
and deceived community. Strange as it may seem, those events in 
human affairs which often excite laughter and ridicule, are intimately 
associated with those that smite the spirits of rnen with grief and 
dismay. 

" Res omnes sunt humane, flebile ludibrium.'" 

It is in no spirit of contest, but with a sincere desire to bring 
the judgment of the House to that which I conceive to be the only 
point necessary to decide, that I design to offer as a substitute for 
the resolution on the table the followinsf: 



ON THE PUBLIC DEPOSITS. 



179 



"Resolved, That the reasons of the Secretary of the Treasury, for the removal 
of the public deposits from the Bank of the United States, are insufficient, and that it 
is inexpedient to enact any law authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to deposit the 
public moneys in the State banks." 

The Committee of Ways and Means have not thought proper 
to present this question to the House. Instead of a decision of the 
House upon this point, which it is clearly our duty to make under 
the law, the committee have presented a variety of abstractions, 
tending to no practical ends. Should the vote of the House disap- 
prove the reasons of the Secretary, his course cannot be mistaken. 
He must restore to the United States Bank what he has taken from 
it, or he must "put his house in order." 

After all that has or can be said concerning a remedy for the 
evil that is now preying upon the country, I have been unable to see 
or think of anything which promises success but an immediate halt 
in our march to destruction, and, as speedily as possible, a return to 
the point from which we set out. When you find yourselves in a 
course of ruin, does not wisdom require you to retrace your steps? 

Sir, notwithstanding the confidence of the majority here in its 
strength, I yet hope to see it take counsel of prudence. The eyes 
of the people have been opened to the true cause of their sufferings. 
Two months ago it was asserted by the supporters of the executive 
measures that the war upon the bank, begun two years ago and con- 
summated last October, had brought no ill consequences to the peo- 
ple. The loud and incessant cry from all quarters, that has been 
pouring in upon us since the session began, can now no longer be 
misunderstood. In this dilemma, the distress of the country being 
admitted, we are told it is all chargeable to the oppressive conduct 
of the bank. 

I must beg the attention of gentlemen who assume this position 

to a report of the bank which came to us yesterday ; it contains a 

statement of facts, denied by no one, which must put at rest forever 

all further accusation against that abused institution. It shows that, 

instead of curtailing its accommodations below the amount withdrawn 

from its resources, it has, within the last six months, increased those 

accommodations by nearly three millions of dollars, in proportion to 

its means. To be accurate, the account stands thus: 

Public and private deposits withdrawn between 1st October, 1833, 

and 1st April, 1834, $7,788,403 

Reduction of loans within the same period, 5,057,527 

Difference, $2,730,876 



180 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

By this plain tale, the oft-refuted story of the tyranny of the 
bank is at once "put down." The bank, during the whole of that 
scene of confusion and bankruptcy which was begun by the Execu- 
tive in the recess of Congress, has been straining all her energies to 
mitigate the force of the blow aimed at her, but which fell with fatal 
effect upon the country. 

By the same report gentlemen may learn why it is, at this mo- 
ment, so many of their favorite State banks are alive. During the 
six months past, the State banks have been indebted to the United 
States Bank in the average amount of three millions and a half of 
dollars. They might have been called upon at any moment for this 
sum. In mercy to them it has not been done. Yet it has been as- 
serted here, and the presses devoted to the administration have been 
loud and constant in their assertions, that the United States Bank 
was curtailing its loans to merchants, bringing, in this way, bank- 
ruptcy upon its debtors; that it was laboring to crush the State 
banks by the same means ; all in order to extort from Congress a re- 
newal of its charter. 

The country is beginning to look to the origin of the evils that 
afflict it. It sees that those who have been exerting power ( if the 
conduct of the Executive deserves so mild a designation) are the 
real authors of the universally prevalent distress of which they com- 
plain. The country now knows that the bank, instead of causing or 
increasing this distress, has been endeavoring to mitigate its severity. 

All that has happened from the ruinous policy of the executive 
was foretold and the advisors of this fatal measure were warned 
against it. They were warned by the opinion of practical honest 
men everywhere, who dared to speak truth, even to the unwilling 
ear of power. The President, however, and his Secretary heeded 
not their advice, but gave their ears and understandings to the keep- 
ing of visionary empirics who knew not, nor, it seems, cared what 
ills their pernicious counsels might bring upon the country. While 
merchants, boards of trade and chambers of commerce all foresaw 
and foretold the consequences to our trade and currency, likely to 
flow from the act of the Secretary of the Treasury, long before it 
had been consummated, some financial quack was at work with his 
arithmetical quantities and algebraic equations, showing the Presi- 
dent, by "demonstration," that "the removal of five millions from 
bank A to bank B could result in nothing but simply a change of 
locality." 



ON THE PUBLIC DEPOSITS. 181 

This problem was the beginning and end of the cabinet lucubra- 
tion on this subject. It is humiliating to compare the unpardonable 
ignorance of those in power, of the practical business concerns of 
the country, with the clear foresight on the same subjects possessed 
by men in very humble stations, to be found all over this Union. 
It reminds me forcibly of an observation, upon a kindred subject, by 
one of the profoundest political philosophers of the last age. * He 
■observed that he had often known merchants with the sentiments 
and abilities of great statesmen, and had seen persons in the rank of 
statesmen with the conceptions and characters of peddlers ; that he 
had found nothing in any habits of life or education which tended 
wholly to disquahfy men for the functions of Government, but that 
by which the power of exercising these functions is often acquired. 
*'I mean," says he, "a mean spirit, and habits of low cabal and in- 
trigue, which I have never seen, in one instance, united with a ca- 
pacity for sound and manly policy." Let the people, who feel the 
unhappy results of a single error of the Executive, determine where 
the statesmen and where the peddlers of this nation are to be found. 

I have heard gentlemen from various quarters of the Union de- 
scribe the blighting effects of the policy lately adopted upon their 
respective vicinities. I am fully persuaded that no portion of the 
•country can feel this blight more intensely than the young States of 
the West. The simplest principles ot political economy will satisfy 
gentlemen that I am not mistaken in this opinion. I wish, sir, that 
every man entitled to a vote, west ot the Alleghenies, had a copy of 
the speech ot the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Wilde]. That 
clear and powerful analysis of the laws of currency, with those large 
and comprehensive views of our present condition, which do equal 
honor to the head and heart of my honorable friend, cannot fail to 
be read and studied with advantage, and by the philosopher not less 
than the peasant. 

Trade cannot be carried on without capital ; capital is the grad- 
ual accumulation of labor and enterprise. Old countries, where 
labor is unfettered, will, therefore, abound in surplus capital, while 
in new countries it cannot exist to any extent, since time has not 
been there given for its accumulation. Throughout the great valley, 
stretching from the sources of the Ohio to the Missouri, now filled 
with a hardy and laborious population, you have a soil teeming with 

* Edmund Burke. 



182 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

production. What avail the labor of the husbandman and the fer- 
tility of the earth, if capital is wanting to buy and transport to mar- 
ket the annual products of both? The labor of all that population, 
up to this time, has been expended in paying for the land it tills, 
and, by culture and improvement, increasing its production. The 
Bank of the United States has furnished the West with a capital 
which it wanted, for which it languished, and which it must again 
want, if that bank be compelled soon to close its business and with- 
draw its capital. 

Two years ago we were told, in the President's veto message, 
that the West must become bankrupt by paying six per cent, inter- 
est on the debt it owed the United States Bank. How was that 
debt created? By a loan from the bank, of its money, at six per 
cent, per annum. This money was employed in trade; in buying 
and transporting to market the products of the country. I speak 
from actual knowledge when I say that I have known large amounts 
of money borrowed from individuals at ten per cent, interest and 
employed in purchasing, for speculation, the agricultural productions 
of the Miami valley. I know that money thus loaned has been prof- 
itably expended in this trade; that borrowers have often realized 
handsome profits on capital thus loaned and thus employed. The 
difference between six and ten per cent., which is paid for the use of 
the money thus employed, is lost, not by the purchaser, but by the 
farmer who sells the property thus purchased. 

Again: The effect of the withdrawal of the United States 
Bank from the West will be to open the office and re-instate the bus- 
iness of the broker. The money in circulation there will, as even 
now, within the last month, it does, rate at a discount of from two 
to ten per cent, in the Eastern cities. 

This will be the currency received by the farmer and mechanic 
for the products of their farms and workshops. 

The merchant, who sells his goods to them, must pay for those 
goods in the Atlantic cities, in a currency at par there. He, of 
course, makes his customers, the farmers and mechanics, pay him, 
in the increased price of his goods, the two or ten per cent, which 
he will have to give on the money he receives, in order to procure 
such funds as will pay his debt to the merchants in Philadelphia or 
New York, The withdrawal, then, of the capital of the bank which 
has been constantly employed in facilitating domestic exchanges, 
will, by diminishing competition, increase the profits of the broker. 



ON THE PUBLIC DEPOSITS. 183 

Those profits, made by large capitalists, when they swell to an un- 
reasonable extent, are a clear loss to the laboring and producing 
classes. 

The West will be a peculiar sufferer under this policy in another 
and by no means the least deleterious of its consequences. All the 
revenues of the Federal Government are derived from impost duties 
on foreign goods and from the sales of public lands. The consumer 
of the goods on which the impost is laid pays the duty. No por- 
tion of the population of the Union, in proportion to its numbers, 
consumes more of those articles subject to duty than the people of 
the West. They, therefore, contribute, from the earnings of their 
labor, the full proportion of the common revenue derived from im- 
posts. The three millions annually paid for lands is received wholly 
from the Western and Southwestern States. A proportion of this 
revenue suited to the business of the country has been left hereto- 
fore in the United States Bank in the West, to be employed as so 
much capital by our own citizens. This office your State banks, as 
the experiment has proved, can never perform for them. Their rev- 
enue will be poured into the laps of the Atlantic cities. How are 
they to be expended by the Government? Internal improvement, it 
was once hoped, might be the means of expending some portion of 
it in the West; but that system, by the interposition of the Presi- 
dent's veto power, is destroyed. Your whole revenue ( of which, as 
I have shown, the West pays its full proportion) will be expended 
in harbors, arsenals, fortifications and dock-yards on the seaboard, 
and circulate there for the benefit of the Atlantic States alone. In 
such a system there is no equity, no equality of burden and benefit. 

If as I have shown, the States of the West are to suffer more 
than any other great geographical divisions of the confederacy, Ohio 
( my own State ), of all the West, will suffer most from the reduction 
cf prices and stagnation of trade. She is one of those who, accord- 
ing to the President's opinion, "ought to break;" she has "traded 
on borrowed capital." She has borrowed, and now owes, five mill- 
ions of dollars. With this money she has, with an enterprise unsur- 
passed in the ancient or modern history of any community, executed 
a great work of internal improvement, which should have been done 
long since at the expense of the whole Union. Her four hundred 
miles of canal has poured the waters of the great lakes of the North 
into the Gulf of Mexico. Ohio must look for a fund to pay the in- 
terest on this debt thus contracted to the tolls collected on her canals. 



184 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

The amount of those tolls must depend on the trade of the country. 
If prices fall and trade languish (as we know they have and will yet 
still more unless we stop short in our present experiment) the labor- 
ing people of Ohio will find their taxes increased. The interest on 
their canal debt must be paid, and what the tolls do not pay must be 
raised in taxes on the people. Thus, while your cruel policy dimin- 
ishes the price of every article produced by the farmer and mechanic, 
and thus diminishes their ability to pay, it increases the tax and 
swells the demands upon them. You starve the slave and yet 
increase his labor ; you increase the burden of the people, and at 
the same time reduce the strength required to bear it. What can 
the people of the West see (if this new system is to prevail) in the 
prospect before them ? Nothing but ruin to their trade, paralysis to 
their industry, and, worst of all, that host of vice and crime which 
will spring up everywhere when labor has no incentive, industry no 
adequate reward. 

Have the people of that portion of your country deserved this 
at your hands? Instead of extending a parental regard to them, 
you have abandoned them to premature orphanage and cold neglect. 
Is there anything in their history that merits this? Less than fifty 
years ago, urged on by enterprise or necessity, the first settlers 
plunged into the western wilderness. For many years every cabin 
was a fort — every cornfield a camp. Every night the husband and 
father, with arms in his hands, guarded the slumbers of his wife and 
children. At every sound that broke upon the stillness of the sur- 
rounding woods, the wakeful mother clasped her infant closer to her 
breast and breathed a silent prayer for protection to "Him with 
whom mercy sits at the right hand and judgment at the left." If 
they assembled to worship God, it was in the woods, upon the hill- 
side, or in the deep valley. There, still, they were girt round with 
peril and war. The song of praise was often interrupted by the yell 
of the Indian warrior, rushing from his ambush to bathe the scalping- 
knife and tomahawk in the white man's blood. 

That savage foe has fled before their advancing enterprise, until 
the receding echoes of his warwhoop are now borne upon the blast 
that sweeps across the great prairies of the farthest West; a little 
while and they will be drowned forever in the roar of the Pacific. 

The people of the Western States are just beginning to realize 
the fruits of years of privation and toil. They have not expected 
the cup to be dashed from their lips. They understand, for they 



ON THE PUBLIC DEPOSITS. 185 

have already felt, the consequences of the late movement of the 
Executive on the currency and trade of the country. 

They have had, in their recent history, some knowledge of that 
sort of currency which depends on and comes from State banks. 
They will not be satisfied with your ingenious speculations as to 
what will be — they have made a terrible experiment, exactly like 
that you now propose to make, and they know what they have suf- 
fered and lost; they are unwilling to surrender the wisdom learned 
by experience to the theories of any one. 

While we deplore the irreparable mischiefs that follow to the 
interest, of those we represent, from the unexpected change lately 
wrought in our financial system, let me, in conclusion, beseech gen- 
tlemen to look to that power, hitherto unknown in our political his- 
tory, by which the President alone has effected that change. 

How has that power revealed to us its tremendous energies 
within the last six months? The President has obtained uncon- 
trolled possession of the public treasure in the recess of Congress, and, 
by this bold maneuver, he has, with the aid of his veto power, placed 
it beyond the power of Congress to reclaim their lost rights, unless a 
majority of two-thirds of both branches shall unite in opposition to 
him. When we see the rights of the Legislature thus invaded, it is 
natural to inquire, what great good has been achieved ? What fear- 
ful evil impending over us has been averted by it ? Has the Amer- 
ican dictator, like the Roman, "taken care that no detriment should 
come to the republic?" No ; the exact reverse is the truth. 

He has taken your whole treasure from the custody where, it is 
admitted, it was perfectly secure, and placed it in the keeping of 
State banks, where we are not sure it is safe for the passino- hour. 
In doing all this, he boasts that he crushed the United States Bank ; 
that he has, in the hyperbolical language of his friends, "strangled a 
monster ! " In the true stlye of the mock-heroic, the fabulous ex- 
ploits of Hercules are put forward as parallel achievements. Mean- 
time, in destroying one bank, he has given life and perpetual exist- 
ence to one hundred other banks. 

He crushes one serpent, and, at the same moment, he places in 
the vitals of the State innumerable knots and endless involutions of 
hungry tape-worms to gorge their ravening and insatiable maws upon 
the very sources of life. 

It was the idle vaunt of a renowned general, in the declining 
period of the Roman republic, "that he could call up armed legions 



186 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

with the stamp of his foot." Sir, we; have hved to see the acts of 
one man produce phenomena more appaUing than the reahty of the 
proud Roman's boast. 

We have seen the "Executive" ministerial officer of the most 
Hmited Government on earth expand the mere emblem of authority 
into the amplitude of kingly prerogative, and, of his own will, com- 
municate to it the strength and vigor of imperial sway. Thus 
armed he grasps with his own hand the wealth and energies of a 
nation's commerce; and in a day they wither into imbecile bank- 
ruptcy in his clutch. With this same power he enters the humble 
dwelling of the laboring poor man, or the neat mansion of the 
industrious mechanic ; he sees there well-rewarded industry shedding 
smiles, and plenty, and innocent contentment upon a cheerful, happy 
family. At the wave of his hand this vision of happiness disap- 
pears, and in its place come want and poverty and squalid misery 
and woe. Look back over the whole history of your government. 
Do you find in it any executive power approaching to this? No; to 
find authority for this searching and overshadowing tyranny, you 
must go to the groaning monarchies of Europe. English history, 
and not your own, will furnish you with such examples of ** execu- 
tive power." Consult the reigns of the crafty Plantagenets — the 
obstinate and tyrannical Tudors ; read the bloody annals of the mis- 
guided Stuarts; there, and there only, will you find examples to 
compare with the last six months of our history. 

I entreat gentlemen to look out upon the country. You see 
the poor and the rich thronging to the capital for relief. They 
repair to the President's mansion ; its doors are rudely closed against 
them. A President, elected by the people, refuses to see and confer 
with them in the extremity of their distress — distress brought on 
them by his own act. The voice of absolute power bids them "go 
home;" they are only permitted to approach the throne through the 
cold and imperfect medium of written communication. Driven from 
thence, they come here — here, to their own immediate servants. 
How are they treated in this House? An inflexible and proud 
majority denounces their assertions as falsehood — their opinions as 
folly. A press, devoted to power all over the country, answers to 
the universal wail of distress with grinning ribaldry and sneering 
scorn. Sir, if the lessons of past ages are not fables and all history 
a lie ; if the whole theory of your government be not based upon 
fiction, we shall soon see the collected energies of an aggrieved, 



ON THE PUBLIC DEPOSITS. 187 

insulted people forcing their influence upon this hall. That influence 
will be felt here, where every pulsation must answer to the throb of 
public feeling. You will feel this, not in that might that slumbers 
in a freeman's arm, but in that fierce indignation which sleeps not, 
nor slumbers in the freeman's bosom so long as he feels the cold iron 
of oppression entering into his soul. Mr. Speaker, I have done. 
The proofs of our misguided policy thicken upon us every hour. A 
blasted monument of it at this moment stands, with empty vaults 
and closed doors, * in view from the windows of this hall. If all 
these will not avail to change the stern resolves of the majority here, 
then I warn that majority to take counsel of their selfish fears; let 
them remember the admonition of Holy Writ: — "Pride goeth 
before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." 



APPENDIX. 

EXTRACT FROM GEN. JACKSON'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS, MARCH 4, 1829. 

"The recent demonstration of public sentiment inscribes on the list of executive 
duties, in characters too legible to be overlooked, the task of reform, which will require 
particularly the correction of those abuses that have brought the patronage of the Fed- 
eral Government into conflict with the freedom of elections, and the counteraction of 
those causes which have disturbed the rightful course of appointment, and have placed 
or continued power in unfaithful or incompetent hands." 



EXTRACT FROM MR. JEFFERSON'S CIRCULAR, PUBLISHED AND ADDRESSED TO 
THE VARIOUS OFFICERS OF THE GOVERNMENT UNDER HIS ADMINISTRATION. 
"The President of the United States has seen, with dissatisfaction, officers of the 
General Government taking, on various occasions, active parts in the election of public 
functionaries, whether of the General or State Governments. Freedom of elections be- 
ing essential to the mutual independence of Government, and of the different branches 
of the same Government, so vitally cherished by most of our Constitutions, it is deemed 
improper for officers depending on the Executive of the Union to attempt to control or 
influence the free exercise of the elective right; and further, it is expected that he (the 
officer) will not attempt to influence the votes of others, nor to take any part in the 
business of electioneering, that being deemed inconsistent with the Constitution and 
his duties to it." 



The following is a statement of the amount of bank capital incorporated since 
1832, derived from the best sources of information. It is doubtless, if incorrect at all 
below the true amount. It shows how rapidly we are going on to banish bank paper 



•■■ The Bank of Washington. Three other banks in the District stopped payment 
in a few days afterward. 



188 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

from our currency. There are now (including the following) about five hundred State 
banks in operation. Yet we are gravely told that if we put down the United States 
Bank, we shall at once restore gold and silver currency, and get rid of paper altogether: 

Maine, $ 100,000 

Vermont, 600,000 

Rhode Island, 1,000,000 

Connecticut, 600,000 

New Jersey, 100,000 

New York, 4,000,000 

Pennsylvania, 4,400,000 

Maryland, . 500,000 

North Carolina, 2,800,000 

South Carolina, 500,000 

Mississippi, 700,000 

Louisiana, 12,000,000 

Tennessee, 5,000,000 

Kentucky, 5,000,000 

Ohio, 4,000,000 

Indiana, . 1,000,000 

$42,900,000 

Mr. Corwin, at the conclusion of his speech, moved to amend 
the resolution by striking out all after "Resolved," and insert in lieu 
thereof the following: 

"That the reasons of the Secretary of the Treasury for the removal of the public 
deposits from the Bank of the United States are insufficient, and that it is inexpedient 
to enact a law requiring the Secretary of the Treasury to deposit the public moneys in 
the State banks." 



MEMORIALS IN RELATION TO THE 
PUBLIC DEPOSITS. 



In April, 1834, a period when a large portion of the people were deeply excited 
in consequence of the removal of the Public Deposits by the Secretary of the Treasury, 
(Mr. Taney) Mr. Corwin presented in Congress two memorials from citizens of War- 
ren and Clinton counties, Ohio, upon the financial embarrassments of the day. 
Although his remarks on those several occasions are brief, they state the object of the 
memorialists so fully, and contain such a well-expressed and well-deserved compliment 
to that portion of his constituents, that it would not be just either to him or to 
them, if they were omitted in this compilation, 

Mr. Speaker: 

I am charged with the presentation to this House of a memor- 
ial, signed by about two thousand of the inhabitants of a single 
county of the district I have the honor to represent. By reference 
to the names and designations of occupations affixed to them it will 
be seen that they are composed of farmers, merchants and a great 
variety of those engaged in mechanical pursuits. They are emi- 
grants, or the descendants of emigrants, from every State in the 
Union and present in many respects a faithful miniature picture of 
the manners, habits, tastes and opinions of the whole American pop- 
ulation. They are generally in that condition for which a pious and 
wise one of old so fervently prayed — they are neither rich nor poor, 
but in that happy medium between the extremes of poverty and 
wealth which philosophy had taught and all experience proved to be 
most favorable to the cultivation of that only true dignity of charac- 
ter, a modest yet manly independence of thought and action. They 
inhabit the most fertile portion of the Miami valley, a district of 
country remarkable for its exuberant production of those heavy arti- 
cles of subsistence that are everywhere regarded as the necessaries of 
life. For these, the only subjects of export trade in that country, 
the memorialists have usually found markets through the Ohio and 
Mississippi rivers in the South, and lately through the Ohio canals 

and the lakes in the North — markets which have yielded an encour- 

(189) 



190 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

aging reward to their industry; I say, sir, their industry, for in that 
country almost every man engaged in agricultural pursuits wields his 
own sickle and scythe and plows with alacrity his own fields. I may 
say, without exaggeration, that they have a country and population 
that (if need should be) could realize the boast of the better days 
of the English commonwealth, when "every rood of ground main- 
tained its man." Many of these memorialists came to that country 
while the wandering and marauding Indian tribes held there a 
divided empire with the arts and enterprise of civilized life. They 
have lived, in half the length of years allotted to the life of man, to 
see the then unbroken forest disappear and rich plantations, covered 
with luxuriant crops, rise up in its place. The Bank of the United 
States has, for the last fifteen years, furnished a capital for their trade 
and a currency which represented truly the exchangeable value of 
their property. This currency, always as good as gold or silver 
coin, is now rapidly disappearing, and the paper of State banks, 
having an estimated value never equal to its nominal amount, as rap- 
idly taking its place. Experience, (that sure, but, in these times, 
too much neglected teacher,) dearly bought, almost fatal, experience, 
has taught them that this last cannot subsist without some power 
stronger than charter stipulations to regulate and control it. In the 
present state of affairs they look with fearful anticipations to that 
ruinous condition in which the establishment of the United States 
Bank found them, and from which the excellent administration of its 
functions, as a regulator of currency, redeemed them. Without this 
institution they expect to see again currencies of different values 
in different parts of the Union, with a difference of exchange operat- 
ing, as it once did, as a tax, varying from two to ten per cent., on 
every article they buy from the Atlantic cities. They expect to see 
State banks all over the country sinking into hopeless insolvency, 
leaving immense amounts of their paper worthless, in possession of 
those who have earned it with the labor of their own hands. They 
already feel the baneful influence of a deranged and vicious currency 
in the depression of prices and general stagnation of trade. They 
see in that paralysis which has benumbed the great mercantile cities 
of the North and Southwest, the near and sure approach of ruin to 
themselves — for they look to those great hearts of trade for the life- 
blood which is to nourish the industry and enterprise of that rich 
interior of which they are a part. 

These memorialists believe that the evils, present and prospect- 



MEMORIALS ON THE PUBLIC DEPOSITS. 191 

ive, of which they complain, are to be traced to the late act of the 
Secretary of the Treasury in withholding the revenues of the coun- 
try, the money of the people, from the United States Bank, where 
it had been heretofore safely kept and usefully employed. They 
assert what is now conceded by all, that the money of the Govern- 
ment and people was safe in the custody of the United States Bank, 
and fear that it is not so in the State banks that now have it. They 
insist that as the safety of the public treasure in the United States 
Bank is not denied, and as the bank has performed faithfully the 
duties pertaining to its fiscal agency, that the withdrawal from it of 
the public deposits is indefensible upon principles of national good 
faith or sound policy. I have already informed you that this memor- 
ial comes from a county bearing the venerated name of Warren, 
Having ever present to their minds the glorious associations con- 
nected with the name of "the first great martyr to the cause of lib- 
erty," it is not to be expected that they should speak in "bated 
breath and whispering humbleness" of power usurped or power 
abused. In a strain of honest indignation they declare the late con- 
duct of the Secretary of the Treasury to be unwarranted by the 
Constitution or laws of the land. They appeal to Congress as the 
guardians of the law and their constituted agents for redress. They 
ask you to vindicate their violated Constitution and broken laws, by 
an immediate restoration of the public moneys to their former place 
of deposit. They pray you to recharter the United States Bank. 
These measures are respectfully demanded of us as the only means 
by which lost confidence and quietude can be restored, and their 
prosperity, now rapidly declining, arrested in its downward career. 

The above remarks were made April 7th, 1834. On the 28th Mr. Corwin pre- 
sented the Memorial from the citizens of Clinton county, and spoke as follows : 

I am charged, Mr. Speaker, with the duty of presenting a 
memorial to this House from one of the three counties composing 
the district I have the honor to represent. This memorial comes 
from Clinton county, in the State of Ohio. It is signed, as two 
most respectable gentlemen of the county inform me, by thirteen 
hundred and one citizens and qualified voters of that county. These 
are composed of all the trades and professions common to the coun- 
try, but chiefly farmers — men who plow and sow and reap their own 
fields. The facts they set forth and the opinions they hold are not 
the offspring of a sudden excitement, produced by the agitations that 



192 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

often prevail without cause in large and populous cities, but the 
deliberate, well-considered judgment of each man's own unbiased 
understanding. 

Gentlemen who have not looked closely into the habits and pur- 
suits of the people who inhabit the interior agricultural regions of 
the West, can have but a faint idea of their true character. On a 
footing of the most perfect equality in all their civil and political 
rights ; independent in the fullest sense of the word ; their own labor 
crowned with the common blessing of Providence, places them 
beyond all dependence upon mortal man. Such, emphatically, are 
those whose prayer I now present to this House. Their minds, 
invigorated and purified by healthful, innocent labor, are not subject 
to artificial and unnatural excitements ; nor can such a people be sub- 
ject to that most vulgar intemperance of a deranged heart — a dis- 
eased craving after notoriety, and the miserable indulgences of mere 
worldly distinction. These memorialists assert that within the last 
few months they have experienced great scarcity of money and 
depression of prices of all the productions of their country. The 
existence of those evils has been often denied here. I now offer to 
prove them by thirteen hundred witnesses, as respectable as any 
equal number to be found in America. These, sir, are not the asser- 
tions of a party. At a late election in that county for representa- 
tives to the State Legislature there were polled 1,410 votes — 1,301 
voters of the same county sign this memorial. This exhibits a una- 
nimity not to be found where political party machinery is at work. 
They pray you to restore the public moneys to the custody of the 
United States Bank, and, believing a national bank to be a national 
benefit, they ask a recharter of the old, or the establishment by law 
of a similar institution. I need not add that, next to the approba- 
tion of my own conscience, it gives me pleasure to find that I am 
sustained in the course I have pursued here on these great and excit- 
ing subjects, by so large and respectable a portion of my constitu- 
ents. 



ON THE CONSTITUTION OF MICHIGAN. 



The consideration of the President's Message transmitting to Congress the Con- 
stitution and other documents originating with a convention in the Territory of Michi- 
gan, with a view to the formation of a State Government, was resumed in the House of 
Representatives December the 28th, 1835. The question of boundary between that 
Territory and the adjoining States (which, at one time, threatened a collision between 
Michigan and Ohio), incidentally came up during the debate ; and in reply to Messrs. 
Williams, of North Carolina, and Mason, of Virginia, Mr. Corwin rose and said : 

It was not his intention, at the opening of this discussion, to 
protract the debate a moment ; but he was compelled, by a sense of 
imperative duty, to ask the attention of the House, for a few 
moments, to a view of this subject, presented by the gentleman from 
Virginia [Mr. Mason], who had just taken his seat. He had also a 
word to say (if he had rightly understood him) to the gentleman 
from North Carolina [Mr. Williams]. 

The gentlemen, said Mr. C, seemed both to consider the ques- 
tion of boundary between Ohio and the proposed State of Michigan 
as a judicial question. It is very clear that, if this be a judicial 
question purely, it will be difficult to establish the right of this 
House to adjudge and determine it. It is of great importance, Mr. 
Speaker, that we should understand well before we act, whether we 
are acting within the scope of our acknowledged constitutional 
powers. If there be a doubt, therefore, whether this question of 
boundary, or any other which may belong to the main proposition, 
(the admissiom of the new State), be a question proper to be 
decided here, or referred to the judicial department, that doubt 
should be sufficient to send the whole to the Judiciary Committee — 
that committee being, both by the law of this House and its prac- 
tice, our legal and Constitutional advisers. 

Gentlemen will see the propriety of bringing this subject, with 
all its attendant topics, to the notice of that committee, when it is 
once perceived that the question of boundary cannot be separated 
from the question of admission of the new State into the Union. It 

14 (193) 



194 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

is incontrovertible that we have no power to alter, modify or amend 
the Constitution of Michigan, This can only be done by a conven- 
tion of the people of that territory. They have sent us an entire 
instrument, under which they proposed to become one ef the Amer- 
ican confederacy. We must therefore admit them with the constitu- 
tion of their choice as it is here presented, or we must reject them, 
if there be anything in that constitution which compels us to that 
course. If gentlemen will turn to the Constitution of Michigan it 
will be seen that it ordains as well the boundaries of the proposed 
State as the rights, civil and political, of its inhabitants. They pro- 
pose to become a portion of the Union, in the new character of a 
sovereign State, with territorial limits which comprehend a large and 
most interesting portion of two other sovereign States, to-wit: 
Indiana and Ohio. This is determined by a glance at the maps of 
the country. The committee, then, which shall be charged with the 
investigation of this subject, must either leave that part of the Con- 
stitution of Michigan, which ordains the boundaries of the State, 
out of view altogether and admit them to come into the Union, 
claiming, if you please, to impose her form of government on all the 
people and over all the territory of Ohio and Indiana, or they must 
decide whether that portion of disputed territory, coryprehended 
within the limits of the new State, belongs in truth and by law to 
Michigan, or to Ohio and Indiana, according to their known claims, 
respectively. 

Will any committee, or will this House, admit a State into this 
Union without ascertaining its territorial jurisdiction ? Or will they, 
if it can be avoided, admit a State into this family of republics, with 
a license to sue one or two of her sisters? When she comes and 
knocks at your door asking permission to come into your house, 
that she may thereby more easily fight for and dispossess two of its 
old inmates of a portion of their property, will you take her by the 
hand and spirit her on to litigation, or more probably to a contest of 
force? Sir, I am very sure no such fatuity will ever possess this 
House ; it is certain that no such necessity is imposed on us. What, 
then, will your committee do? They will examine and determine 
whether the Constitution of Michigan is consistent with the rights of 
Indiana and Ohio. 

I ask the gentlemen, not merely of the legal profession, but 
those of every class in this House, to whom they would apply for 
an opinion on such a subject, were they personally interested? Mich- 



ON THE CONSTITUTION OF MICHIGAN. 195 

igan claims to extend her constitution over the citizens of other 
States as now constituted, by virtue of a supposed compact to that 
effect, in the ordinance of 1787. How is the force of that claim to 
be ascertained? Who shall say whether a particular clause in that 
ordinance rises above the changeable and repealable character of 
ordinary legislation, and assumes the more sacred and inviolable 
nature of a contract? No man, however elevated his general attain- 
ments, can be found vain enough to imagine himself competent to 
give an intelligent and safe answer to the question here involved, 
unless he be to some extent conversant with law as a science. 
Again, sir: The ordinance under which Michigan claims is but a 
law of Congress. Ohio and Indiana both claim under acts of Con- 
gress and compacts made with them as States. If these conflict, 
who is competent to determine which is paramount to the other? 
To what committee, in short, does this House refer questions of 
law? The answer given in every other case to this question has 
been uniform — "the standing committee on the Judiciary." Gentle- 
men who look only to the isolated fact of admission into the Union, 
-will find that they can no more arrive at that point without first 
meeting and deciding all the grave questions of law I have sug- 
gested than they could transfer themselves from this hall to the north- 
ern lakes without passing over the intermediate space. 

I hope gentlemen will not deem it beneath the dignity of this 
House to consult in this matter a little the feelings and views of both 
parties to this question of boundary. With them it has always been 
viewed as mainly a question to be resolved by a right construction of 
the acts and laws of Congress. It has thus been contested on both 
sides. You are appealed to as a final arbiter. They will expect 
you to call to your aid that committee to whom the nation looks for 
•correct opinions when construction of law is the question. Who 
lias ever heard, till now, of submitting a legal proposition to the 
•Committee on the Territories? Sir, I disclaim all idea of drawing 
comparisons between the individuals composing either of these com- 
mittees. I only insist that the laws of the House have assigned to 
each their appropriate function, and the Speaker is presumed to have 
arranged the talent of the House in reference to those laws. For 
the people of my own State I only ask a fair trial, and in the usual 
way. Give them these, and those fearful excitements, of which the 
gentleman from Virginia has spoken, will be at once subdued into 
acquiescence in the decision, whether friendly or adverse to their 



196 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

claims. But should this House, to whom the appeal, in a generous 
confidence, has been made, blunder in the dark upon a wrong and 
unusual course and ultimately decide against them, we may then 
look for agitations, accompanied with more frightful violence than 
the gentleman has imagined. 

I flatter myself that it is apparent to all that now is the most 
propitious time to settle this unhappy controversy. I imagine all 
will agree that it is competent for this House to settle it. I entreat 
gentlemen not to think of leaving the question open. I appeal to 
the gentleman from Virginia, whether he could take pleasure in see- 
ing three sovereign States prostrate before the judicial tribunals, ask- 
ing of your courts to determine whether they were States! or, if 
States, whether they had any territory, and how much! Sir,, 
unbounded as my confidence has been, and is, in the federal courts, 
for their sakes, as well as the country, I do not wish to see questions 
which agitate great political communities brought frequently before 
them for decision. To avoid this, and to put forever beyond the 
power of contest this cause of discord and disunion, I entreat the 
House to sc?nd this subject to the only committee competent to ana- 
lyze and present in a connected view all the questions that cluster 
round it ; and, with such a report, I do not permit myself to doubt 
but the House will come to a conclusion as satisfactory to, as it will 
be obligatory upon, all concerned. 



ON THE SURPLUS REVENUE. 



The business first in order in the House of Representatives of the United States 
Thursday, January 1 2th, 1837, was the bill reported by Mr. Cambreling, from the 
Committee of Ways and Means, to reduce the revenue of the United States to the 
wants of the Government. There being two motions pending— first, for commitment, 
and secondly, for indefinite postponement — Mr. Corwin arose and addressed the 
House as follows : 

Mr. Speaker: 

I feel deeply sensible that I am about to occupy the time of the 
House upon a subject which cannot possibly be matured into legisla- 
tion during the brief period that remains to us of the present session. 
It is the conviction that the bill before you, ushered into this House 
with a haste bordering upon rashness, contains within its provisions 
principles too momentous and vitally affecting a large portion of the 
country to be acted upon this session, that impels me to solicit the 
attention of the House to my reasons for sustaining the motion of 
the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Lawrence] for the indefinite 
postponement of the bill. Sir, I am not sure that my thorough con- 
viction of the necessity of tranquilizing the public agitation, which 
the presence of this bill here will excite, by an immediate rejection 
or postponement of it, would have overcome my habitual aversion 
to addressing the House, had I not, in common with my friends, from 
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, felt that such a course could alone 
insure the minority of the committee, with whom the bill originated, 
against misunderstanding, as well here as among those whom we rep- 
resent. Had the motion to lay the biU and report on the table and 
print them prevailed, a paper most elaborate in its structure and 
voluminous in its dimensions, would have gone forth to the country, 
bearing upon its face no intimation that the whole committee did not 
concur in it. To prevent the possibility of such misconstruction, I 
feel it a duty to those who have honored me with a seat here to pre- 
sent my protest, against both the bill and the report which accom- 

(197) 



198 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

panics it, at the earliest moment possible. This poor privilege, sir, 
we had been denied yesterday, by the House, but for the timely sub- 
stitution by my friend from Massachusetts [Mr. Lawrence] of the 
motion for "indefinite postponement" for that which was made by 
the gentleman from New York [Mr. Cambreling]. The latter mo- 
tion, by the strict law of parliament, did not permit the minority of 
the committee to utter even a syllable by way of dissent to the prin- 
ciples of the bill or the report. Courtesy, however, it seems, had 
uniformly conceded to a minority thus situated what the rigid rule 
denied; but, in our case, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Mann] 
pertinaciously insisted on the letter of the law. Courtesy became 
inconvenient, and the "iron rule" of proscription was enforced. 
Permit me here, Mr. Speaker, to offer my thanks to the gentleman 
from Maryland [Mr. Thomas] for his manly appeal to the House in 
our behalf Such exhibitions of magnanimity are rare in these 
times, and ought not to pass unnoticed. I did desire, sir, to see the 
bill disposed of without entering into a debate on its merits ; but as 
no explanation could be even hinted at without it, I am rejoiced that 
the present motion was made, which opens the entire measure pro- 
posed to free and full discussion. 

I shall have occasion to refer to the report, as that is the expo- 
sition presented of the principles and policy on which the bill is 
based. In doing this, as I have only heard it read, and have not had 
the advantage of a perusal of its contents, I cannot pretend to quote 
its language, nor can I hope to be exact in giving even its substance. 
I am happy to see the honorable Chairman of the Ways and Means 
[Mr. Cambreling] in his seat, who will set me right should I at any 
time unwittingly mistake or misrepresent the true import of his pro- 
duction. I am very sure the gentleman will discharge such a duty 
to himself and to me with the utmost alacrity. As he, I doubt not, 
regards this, the youngest of his financial progeny, as possessing 
every combination of symmetry and grace, he will not sit by and see 
its beauty marred without instant interposition in its behalf 

The most obvious objection to the introduction of this bill 
arises from a view of its intrinsic importance, and the difficult and 
delicate questions which are inseparable from any proposition which 
proposes a radical change in the existing tariff. The whole of the 
argument in the very voluminous report, which is nothing but the 
bill on your table, with a few facts and inferences to prop and sus- 
tain it, may be condensed into one or two sentences of plain 



ON THE SURPLUS REVENUE. 199 

English. It is stated (and I shall not now attempt to controvert any 
fact to which I shall have occasion to refer) that the existing tariff 
extends protection to labor employed in manufacturing, in this coun- 
try, the annual product of which is $300,000,000. It is assumed 
(and, for the sake of the argument, I shall admit it) that the protec- 
tion afforded by our existing tariff laws is necessary, and no more 
than is necessary, to enable our own manufacturing establishments to 
exist in competition with foreign establishments employed in the 
same business. To sustain this proposition, the high price of labor 
and capital with us, and the comparative cheapness of both abroad, 
are asserted. 

The report further asserts that the duties collected on imports 
by the rates established by the law of March, 1833, commonly called 
the Compromise Act, will, with the proceeds of the sales of public 
lands, bring into the Treasury, within the next eighteen months, 
more revenue, by seven millions of dollars, than the wants of the 
Government require. Here I beg gentlemen to observe that this 
last proposition is nothing more nor less than a combination of two 
conjectures. The first of these is, that the importations from abroad 
to this country, during the next five years, will reach a given amount 
Whether this conjecture shall be verified must depend upon the num- 
berless contingent events, the turn of which no human sagacity can 
foresee, arising out of the present unsettled condition of trade, labor 
and currency in Great Britain ; the change that may be brought 
about in the markets of England by the termination of the intestine 
wars now raging in Spain and Portugal, and lastly, the very capa- 
bility of this country to consume and pay for foreign importations 
must depend upon reducing to order and stability the currency of 
this country, which, under the improving and sagacious guidance of 
this administration, has been conducted to a state of wild and unman- 
ageable confusion. The next conjecture embodied in the proposi- 
tion I have last stated from the report is, that the public lands are to 
be sold without any legislative or executive restraints as to pur- 
chasers or quantities. In other words, it supposes the famous 
Treasury circular to be repealed. I beg the gentlemen of the far 
West particularly to notice one feature of this report. It is based 
upon the supposition that the bill now on your table, reported by 
one of your standing committees, with that title so captivating to 
patriot ears, "A bill to arrest monopolies of public lands, and to 
prohibit the sales thereof, except to actual settlers, in limited quanti- 



200 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

ties," is to be scouted, thrown out of doors, and its place to be sup- 
plied by this more recent and happy assault upon the popular ear, 
bearing on its front the charmed phrase, "A bill to reduce the reve- 
nue of the United States to the wants of the Government." 

The House will bear in mind that this bill proposes to remedy 
an apprehended evil. It looks into the future, and imagines that, in 
the next year and a half, the existing duties on imports will bring 
'into the Treasury more money than is required for the uses of the 
Government by seven millions of dollars. I have already intimated 
that I object to the time selected for bringing into the House a 
measure fraught with so many difficulties as belong to every subject 
which proposes a radical change in our system of revenue. 

Without adverting, therefore, for the present, to the merits of 
the bill, I feel confident I do not appeal in vain to the House to say 
that we cannot act upon it between this day and the 4th of March. 
Let gentlemen look at the necessary business now before us, and 
then calculate the number of days remaining for its final disposition. 
It will be remembered that Monday in every week is devoted to the 
reception of petitions; Friday and Saturday of each week, by 
another standing rule, are set apart for private claims. From what 
we have already seen during half the allotted term of the session, it 
is not to be expected that a moment of time can be withdrawn from 
that allotted to petitions, for the consideration of other business. 
No gentleman, I am equally sure, dreams that we should deny jus- 
tice any longer than is unavoidable to the many hundreds of private 
claims which have been favorably reported on by that committee 
whose awards, with rare exceptions, are considered laws to the 
House. There is a large body of claimants of a miscellaneous char- 
acter in one class, and the crippled soldiers and widows and orphans, 
the representatives of those who have fallen in your late wars with 
both civilized and savage foes, in another, and a not less meritorious 
few of the surviving veterans of your revolutionary struggle in 
another class, all pointing to the reports of your own committee 
and showing claims upon your justice, some of them delayed for half 
a century. I cannot entertain so poor an opinion of the moral sense 
of an American Congress as to suppose it will turn aside from this 
work of justice and benevolence, to enter into dreamy and heartless 
disquisitions upon the balance of trade ; to ponder over tabular state- 
ments as incomprehensible as the Sybilline books ; to adjust with con- 
temptible accuracy, the ad valorem duty on a foreign penknife, and 



ON THE SURPLUS REVENUE. 201 

this, too, for the purpose of preventing a few milUons more or less 
from coming into that very Treasury, whose doors, in the meantime, 
you close against those who demand of you the payment of your 
honest debts, for the non-payment of which many of your creditors 
are languishing in poverty and want. 

You have then remaining for the dispatch of general legislation 
three days in each week, giving about twenty-two days for the con- 
sideration of bills of a general nature, and all the appropriations for 
the current year. I ask the majority of the Ways and Means, who 
have pushed this new and perplexing subject on the House at this 
time, if it is modest, to say the least of it, to suppose that the 
House is to vote away twenty-four millions of dollars in appropria- 
tions, without inquiry, examination or debate, further than to ask 
whether the Committee of Ways and Means desire it should be 
done? I ask this House, whose constitutional and most important 
function is to know and to approve the object to which every dollar 
is to be applied, before it sanctions its appropriation, whether it is 
willing, at the mere request of a committee, to give a draft on the 
Treasury for nearly thirty millions of dollars, and thus become the 
mere ministerial agent of the Treasury department? This base 
abandonment of duty you must submit to, to this humiliation you 
must come, if you turn aside from the necessary duties of the ses- 
sion to consider the bill now before you ; unless, indeed, you choose 
to rush madly upon an untried scheme, full of danger, and sur- 
rounded with doubt, upon the very reasonable presumption of the 
infallible wisdom of its authors. 

But, Mr. Speaker, if we had all the time we could desire for the 
adjustment of a new system of legislation to any real or supposed 
change in our condition at home, or with other nations, is this an 
auspicious period for the experiment? Turn for a moment to your 
latest advices from England. Every painful pulsation in that great 
heart of capital and trade is followed by a sympathetic throb on this 
side of the Atlantic. What is the state of currency throughout 
Great Britain now? The price of money rising, the banks stopping 
payment, and her financiers unable to foretell the time or the man- 
ner when or how this agitation shall end. Nor is our situation free 
from symptoms of coming misfortune. I shall not stop to inquire 
into the causes of the present anomalous situation of our own cur- 
rency. My friend from Massachusetts [Mr. Lawrence], who ad- 
dressed you with so much force and clearness yesterday, has left 



202 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

nothing to be said by any one on these topics. Sir, the results of 
that gentleman's actual experience, the reflections of his sound un- 
derstanding, always aided by the promptings of a good heart, are 
with me better authority, on such subjects, than a thousand quartos 
filled with speculations of closeted economists. We all know that, 
from some cause, trade and currency seem to be divorced from each 
other ; domestic exchanges are no longer regulated by the course of 
trade, and the very report on your table complains of a redundant 
paper circulation. Who can tell when the causes which have pro- 
duced these affects shall cease to operate? Who can say in what 
they will finally issue? In this distracted state of things, what are 
we asked to do? We are required to enact a law that shall tear from 
its very foundations, where they have rested for twenty years on the 
faith of your laws, a capital and labor which produce property equal 
to three hundred millions of dollars a year. Is this a time to force 
such an amount of capital into new employment? Is this that 
period of calm when so much labor can safely be driven, with sudden 
violence, to abandon its safe and tried pursuits, and seek at once 
other and unaccustomed channels? No, surely this is not that time. 
On the contrary, it would add another to many elements of confusion 
already but too extensively and actively at work. Sir, it does seem 
to me that the unsettled state of the internal commerce and currency 
of this country is of itself an unanswerable objection to the present 
enactment of a law that all must see will powerfully increase the 
evils that already deeply afflict us. The natural instinct of brute 
animals, in such a crisis, would suggest caution and prudence as the 
course of wisdom, not rash adventure and wild experiment. If it 
were bad policy to protect by imposts the industry of your own peo- 
ple, if it could be shown to be unpatriotic and un-American to cher- 
ish by duties manufacturing skill, so that in time of war you might 
be able to furnish the commonest necessaries of life to your own 
people, still, having done so, however unwisely at first, since by 
doing it you have created an immense amount of property, it would 
be madness, moon-struck madness, to crush that property at a blow. 
Sir, by the laws now in force, if you but let them alone, in five 
years, by your own showing, the evil of which you now complain 
will cease to exist. Instead of this, we are now asked, in order to 
get rid of seven millions of surplus revenue, to destroy an annual 
production of three hundred millions ; and are gravely told that this 
will be a most salutary financial operation. Let gentlemen keep 



ON THE SURPLUS REVENUE. 20S 

constantly in mind that the bill and report go upon the admission 
(at least it is not otherwise asserted) that the duties now imposed 
are barely sufficient to enable our own manufacturers to continue 
their business. With the single exception of iron, the report on 
your table will, I think, be found to be in substance as I have quoted 
it. If, then, you diminish that protection by curtailing it in the 
short space of eighteen months by seven millions, which by the law 
now in force would not be done till the end of five years, it follows, 
as a necessary conclusion, that you do abandon capital and labor, 
to the amount I have stated, to instant and total destruction. 

Mr. Speaker, I have only suggested so much of the merits of 
the subject as I deem necessary to direct the attention of the House 
to the importance and number of the questions which we are called 
upon to decide, before we can safely vote for or against the bill. If, 
then, reflection requires time ; if the exercise of reason is an agent 
in our researches after truth ; if knowledge is not intuitive, we poor 
mortals, who are not gifted with those inspirations which seem to be 
the peculiar attributes of the authors of this bill and report, must 
beg a moment's pause before we decide. We must plod on in the 
old beaten way ; we must proceed by painful and slow research ; we 
must stop, look around us, and reflect much ; and after great toil and 
a long journey, we may possibly reach those lofty heights of trans- 
cendental political wisdom which the authors of this bill have scaled 
with the speed of lightning at a single bound. Is it to be expected, 
I again ask, that, in the twenty-two days that remain for general bus- 
iness, we can canvass, item by item, appropriation bills to the 
amount of near twenty-seven millions, and have time left us to labor 
through the difficulties that attend the bill under consideration ? 

Mr. Speaker, in connection with the objections to a considera- 
tion of this bill, arising from a want of time, I must remind its 
authors, and the political majority of this House, of another subject, 
which, in justice to themselves and to the nation, they are bound to 
bring forward at the present session. I allude to an amendment of 
the Constitution, so that the election of President and Vice-President 
of the United States may, in no event, ever devolve on Congress. 
We are now approaching the termination of those eight years during 
which General Jackson has occupied the presidential chair. I believe 
each annual message to Congress, during all that time, has adverted 
in strong and sometimes imploring appeals to the National Legisla- 
ture on this subject. I know that gentlemen have heretofore 



204 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

excused their neglect of these suggestions of the President by say- 
ing that there was in the Senate a pohtical majority opposed to them; 
and, therefore, the great reform, so much desired by the President 
and his friends, must wait till that opposition was subdued. Sir, 
whether fortunately or otherwise for the republic I will not say, but 
the fact is, that favored time, so long prayed for, has at length 
arrived. There is a now a clear majority, in both branches of Con- 
gress, friendly to the existing administration. Now, a time has at 
length come when we may with confidence call upon the friends of 
General Jackson to redeem his and their pledges, so often given, on 
this vital subject. I call especially at this time for action, and not 
promises and postponement. General Jackson, after this session, 
Avill be no more here to admonish or advise us touching this interest- 
ing subject. It has made an imposing figure in that revolution 
which has subverted all the maxims of polity and law, whensoever 
and howsoever they were opposed to his suggestions. It has been a 
theme on which honest patriots and designing demagogues have 
•dwelt with equal skill and power. The President, for the last time 
that his voice can ever be heard in public council, in language which 
bespeaks deep and abiding solicitude, again beseeches you to act. 
Hear what he says in his last message to Congress. Nearly at the 
close, and when he is about to bid a final adieu to you and the cares 
of public life, he gives this subject to your especial charge, with all 
the solemnity of a dying declaration. He says: "All my experi- 
•ence and reflection confirm the conviction I have so often expressed 
to Congress in favor of an amendment to the Constitution, which 
will prevent, in any event, the election of President and Vice-Presi- 
dent of the United States devolving on the House of Representa- 
tives and the Senate ; and I, therefore, beg leave again to solicit your 
attention to the subject." 

Is there, then, any reason now for not carrying this recommen- 
dation into effect, by the party having the power, in both House and 
Senate, to do so? None. I call, then, upon the "Democratic 
party," as you of the majority sometimes (as if in derision of the 
name) call yourselves, to postpone this new experiment on finance; 
dispose of it at once for this year, because it stands in the way of a 
constitutional reform, on which, by your own admission, depends all 
your hope of liberty. Do this, or take the consequences. If you 
now refuse to act, when you have the undoubted power to redeem 
your pledges, so often and solemnly given, the people of this coun- 



ON THE SURPLUS REVENUE. 205 

try will believe that all your promises and professions were not the 
promptings of patriotism, but rather the hollow and selfish artifices 
of a shallow hypocrisy. However uncharitable some gentlemen 
might deem such a conclusion to be, in my judgment it would be 
most reasonable and just. Our conduct admits of no other explana- 
tion, if we consume the time allowed us in discussing the difference 
between two systems of revenue, and pass by unnoticed another 
subject, which, by our own declarations, repeated in every form, 
touches our existence as a free people. 

Sir, I might here content myself with thus expressing my 
objections to the introduction of this bill, at this time, by the com- 
mittee of which I am a member. I have endeavored to satisfy the 
House that the necessary bills, without the passage of which the 
Government cannot execute its ordinary duties during the year, must 
occupy us the entire remainder of the session, and if we should pos- 
sibly have any time not thus necessarily employed, that there are 
other matters of high and paramount national importance, which 
should take precedence of this. But there is another objection rest- 
ing with great weight on my mind, which I cannot forbear to press 
upon the attention of gentlemen before I take my seat. I allude to 
the Compromise Act, as it is familiarly called, of March, 1833. If 
I am right in my conceptions of the true character of that law, we 
are not only forbidden to legislate in the way now proposed at this 
time, but that we cannot so legislate until after the 30th of June, 
1842, without such sacrifice of honor and implied faith as would 
make a bandit blush. 

I shall not pretend that Congress has not the power to alter 
essentially, or, if it will, abolish the law fixing the rates of duties on 
a scale of gradual reduction from 1833 up to 1842; but I deny the 
right of Congress to do so, unless impelled by some dire necessity, 
over which it can exert no control. War, that greatest of all the ills 
that can befall a well-governed people, might present a case of such 
necessity. No such necessity is pretended. No gentleman here will 
risk his character for sanity, by rising in his place and declaring that, 
without a law like that on your table, the liberties or happiness of 
the people are in danger. No man, here or elsewhere, can pretend 
that the Compromise Act of the 2nd of March, 1833, contains any 
principle which menaces the general welfare of the country, or that 
its operation and effects threaten our national prosperity with immi- 
nent danger. On the contrary, sir, the echoes of that general note 



206 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIX. 

of acclaim, which reverberated from one extremity of the Union to 
the other, at the passage of that law, are at this moment scarcely 
silenced. Our circumstances are not changed since the passage of 
that law, in any way connected with its provisions or policy. Hence 
I infer that, as that law, in its terms, fixes the measure of protection 
which shall be extended to domestic manufactures up to the year 
1842, and as it was considered in the light of an arrangement, per- 
manent up to that time, by the Congress who enacted it ; and, fur- 
ther, as it was so regarded by both the friends and foes of the pro- 
tective system all over the country, and as those engaged in manu- 
facturing shaped their business, and disposed their capital, in con- 
formity to this general opinion, although you have the power, you 
have no right now to annul your understood engagement, when by 
so doing, a capital and labor so great as to produce three hundred 
millions a year, which have been invested under the faith thus 
pledged, must be at once destroyed. By altering essentially, as you 
propose to do, the act of 1833, you bring upon this labor and capi- 
tal what is equal to destruction ; you sever them by violence from 
their present business connections, and leave them to the mercy of 
accident for future occupation. I beg gentlemen to turn to the law 
of 1833, and see how all the features of a compact and permanent 
engagement are carefully impressed upon it. 

The first section, taking up the protected articles, or such as 
paid a duty above twenty per centum ad valorem, subjects them to a 
scale of gradual reduction from 1833, until all are brought down to a 
duty of twenty per centum ad valorem in 1842. Why were the sev- 
eral periodical reductions adjusted so carefully through a period of 
nine years, if the law was not expected to continue in force for that 
length of time? Let any gentleman reflect on the history of that 
law for a moment, and he can have no further difficulty in finding 
the principles of a permanent compromise in it. Two great parties, 
as we all know, existed in the country. These were known by the 
designations of tariff and anti-tariff. The anti-tariff party, chiefly 
comprised in the Southern and Southwestern sections of the Union, 
demanded an abandonment of the protective principle, and a reduc- 
tion of duties to a revenue standard alone. They alleged, that as 
they were consumers, and not producers of those articles which were 
protected by law, they paid to the producer (in the protective duty) 
a bounty upon his labor, and insisted on the injustice of thus taxing 
the planting States for the benefit of the Northern manufacturing 



ON THE SURPLUS REVENUE. 207 

States. Such was the argument on one side, whether correct or not 
I shall not here pause to consider. On the other side, those friendly 
to the protective system alleged that the policy of protection was 
begun early in the history of the Government; that especially since 
1816 it had been pursued with such vigor and constancy as not only 
to invite capital but actually to impel it into the business of domes- 
tic manufacture. They insisted, and with the most obvious reason, 
that to withdraw suddenly that protection would result in ruin to the 
capitalists, and wide-spread misery to the laboring classes. They 
proposed a system of gradual reduction of duties, which would give 
time for the acquisition of skill, so as to enable them to operate with 
little or no protection, or, at the worst, (if time were given) a 
gradual and comparatively harmless withdrawal of their capital and 
labor from manufacturing pursuits could be effected. To this propo- 
sition the South acceded, and its substance will be found embodied 
in the law of 1833. Thus gradual reduction, extending through a 
series of years to 1842, saved the manufacturer, while the prospect- 
ive reduction of duties on all protected articles to one standard satis- 
fied the principles contended for by the South. When this was set- 
tled, to make it binding and irrevocable till 1842, the parties inserted 
in the third section of the bill their solemn declaration to that effect. 
The section referred to reads as follows: ''And be it further enacted, 
That until the 30th day of June, one thousand eight hundred and 
forty-two, the duties imposed by existing laws, as modified by 
this act, shall remain and continue to be collected." Could 
your language furnish words more emphatically expressive of a 
declaration by Congress that no change was to be made in this 
branch of your revenue system till June, 1842? Did you then 
expect your people to place no reliance on what you thus sol- 
emnly proclaimed as your determination? No; you did not ex- 
pect the American people to treat you as hollow-hearted knaves, 
attempting to impose on their credulity. The sole object of pro- 
claiming to them the unalterable character of the law of 1833 was 
to quiet the fearful agitation that then everywhere prevailed, and 
give stability to that interest — the manufacturing interest — which 
was most to be affected by your acts. What, sir, were the happy, 
the glorious effects of that compromise? The day before that 
law received the President's approval was overcast with the gath- 
ering cloud of civil war, deepening, spreading and blackening every 
hour. The ground on which we stood seemed to heave and quake 



208 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

with the first throes of a convulsion, that was to rend in fragments 
the last republic on earth ; at this fearful moment an overruling Prov- 
idence revealed the instrument of its will in the person of one man, 
whose virtues would have illustrated the brightest annals of recorded 
time. He produced this great measure of concord, and the succeed- 
ing morning dawned upon the American horizon without a spot ; the 
sun of that day looked down and beheld us a tranquil and united 
people. 

Are we prepared now to break the bonds of peace and renew 
the war? I have said you have the power to do so, but I deny your 
right. I do not measure that right by the standard of law in a 
municipal court. I cannot conceive any idea more ridiculous or con- 
temptible than that which finds no standard of moral or political 
duties and rights, for a Christian, a private gentleman, or a states- 
man, except that which is applicable to a contest before a justice's 
court or a nisi pr his jury. No, sir, I appeal to a law in the bosom of 
man, prior and paramount to this. I appeal to the South, where I 
know that law will be obeyed, and where I know I do not appeal in 
vain. I invoke its characteristic chivalry. I call for that sentiment 
of manly pride which is its offspring. I summon to my aid that 
sensitive honor which feels "a stain like a wound," which abhors 
deception and shudders at violated faith. Will that South, which I 
am sure I have truly described, join in this odious infraction of its 
own treaty, and unite in this miserable war upon the laboring thous- 
ands who have confided in its securities — a war not waged with 
open force and strong hand — a war not waged to avenge insulted 
honor, but to recover the difference between five and ten cents duty 
upon a yard of cotton goods? Your approach to this battle is not 
heralded by the trumpet's voice ; no, you are to take the proposed 
bill and go on a marauding expedition by way of reprisal. You are 
to steal into the dwelling of the poor and boldly capture a mechan- 
ic's dinner! You are to march into the cottage of the widow, and 
fearlessly confiscate the breakfast of a factory girl, for the benefit of 
the planting and grain-growing States of this mighty republic ! 
Such are the motives for this war, and such are to be the trophies of 
its victories. How little do they who have presented such argu- 
ments as these, in this report, know of the character of the people 
of the South and West ! They vainly imagine that the high-minded 
sons of the South have drank of the fatal cup of the sorceress, and, 
like the companions of Ulysses, 



ON THE SURPLUS REVENUE. 209 

"Lost their upright shape, 
And downward fell into the groveling swine." 

The great grain-growing States of the West are informed, in 
this report, that they may reclaim a part of the tribute which, it is 
told them, they have been paying without equivalent, if they will 
agree to this bill. Let me tell the gentlemen that the West must 
first be satisfied they are free in honor to obey this call. The hardy 
race that has subdued the forests of the West, and in their green 
youth have constructed monuments of their enterprise that shall sur- 
vive the pyramids, is not likely, from merely sordid motive, to join 
in inflicting a great evil on any portion of our common country. 
The fearless pioneers of the West, whose ears are as familiar with 
the sharp crack of the Indian's rifle and his wild war-whoop at mid- 
night as are those of your city dandies with the dulcet notes of the 
harp and piano, they, sir, are not the men to act upon selfish calcu- 
lations and sinister inducements. They hold their rights by law, and 
they believe that compacts, expressed or implied, arising from indi- 
vidual engagements or public law, are to be kept and defended with 
their lives, if need be — not to be broken at will, or regarded as the 
proper sport of legislative or individual caprice. 

Mr. Speaker, we have heard much of late that is new to us, if 
not alarming, on this subject of legislative compact. From authori- 
ties of no mean consideration we have heard it boldly preached that 
the validity of a compact arising out ot law is an exploded paradox. 
It is represented as a relic of "old times," and we are told that it is 
inconsistent with the liberties of the people. The liberties of 
the people! It was to establish "the liberties of the people" 
that Robespierre and his infamous associates preach the same doc- 
trine to the deluded and frantic populace of France. Is the 
American government now to adopt this creed of political faith? 
How long is it since we were about to wage war with France 
for refusing to fulfill a treaty which, in the language of our Con- 
stitution, was nothing more than "the supreme law of the land?" 
For this we were ready to launch our thunders upon the seas, and 
arm our whole population for the contest on the land. We required 
the proud monarch of the most warlike nation of modern times to 
humble himself before the offended majesty of "pubHc law." It 
is for a supposed violation of "public law" that your armies have 
been alternately hunting after, and flying before, the fierce Oceola, 
for a whole year, through the lagoons and hommocks of Florida. 
15 



210 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

It is not to be supposed that a people, thus acting, can be brought 
to disregard hke obhgations, whether contracted by express or im- 
plied compact, with its own citizens. 

I hope, sir, I shall be pardoned for dwelling, it may be, some- 
what too long upon this topic. I must now call the attention of the 
House for a few moments to what I deem a singular phenomenon in 
our history, as set forth in the report on your table. It is said that 
the planting and grain-growing States have, since 1789, paid to the 
manufacturers of this country about three hundred and fifty millions 
of dollars, for which they have received no equivalent. Sir, if this 
be true, since the Israelites were required by the Egyptian tyrant to 
make bricks without straw, there is no parallel to such monstrous 
oppression. 

I have already stated that I will not pretend to quote the pre- 
cise language of the report. I am sure it is stated that duties on 
imported articles to the amount of six hundred and eighty-two mill- 
ions of dollars, beside thirty millions for its collection, have been 
paid since the year 1789. It is also stated in the report that more 
than one-half of this aggregate had been levied on protected articles. 
The whole scope of the report labors to prove that this duty on pro- 
tected articles is a grevious and oppressive tax on consumption, for 
which no equivalent is received in return. Connected with these 
positions, the author of the report endeavors to show that the plant- 
ing and grain-growing portions of the Union were, and are, the con- 
sumers, and the few Northern manufacturing States the producers, 
of the protected articles; that the former are the payers, and the 
latter the receivers of the duties, which duties are represented as a 
mere bounty to the labor of the North, for which the South and 
West never have been, and, in the nature of things, never can be, 
reimbursed. Sir, I shall not now trouble the House, nor my friends, 
who put forward this fact as a truth proved by figures and tabular 
statements, with any argument opposed to it, but I must be allowed 
to advert to it as a Western man with feelings of pride. At the 
same time, I must, in common with others, labor under some doubts 
of the fact asserted, arising out of the known history of the last 
twenty or thirty years. 

If the West and Southwest have paid their due proportion of 
this unjust and unremunerated tax of three hundred and fifty mill- 
ions within the last forty years, while, at the same time, they have, 
as the world knows, conquered the savages who possessed the whole 



ON THE SURPLUS REVENUE. 211 

Western and Southwestern territory, cleared the thick forests which 
overshadowed it; in short, if that portion of the United States has, 
in less than half a century, as all admit, reached a point of improve- 
ment in wealth and arts which other times and people required ages 
to achieve, then, I say, I may with pride and confidence challenge 
the whole world, within the period of authentic history, to parallel 
the wonderful people which I have the honor, in part, to represent. 

But, Mr. Speaker, sober reality and stubborn facts compel me 
to repress this exultation at our fancied superiority ; modesty com- 
pels me to doubt whether truth places us so far above common mor- 
ality as this report has done. Facts, known facts, those unaccom- 
modating things that ruin so many beautiful inventions of fertile and 
ingenious minds, are constantly thrusting themselves before, and in 
the way of, the figures and philosophy of the gentleman who has 
labored in this report to push by them, and drive over them, to 
reach his favorite conclusions. You will observe, Mr, Speaker, that 
we are told of the "treasuries other than those of the United 
States," into which this enormous tribute of three hundred and fifty 
millions has been poured. In the same connection you hear of the 
"princely establishments" that have been reared up and sustained 
by it. The "princely establishments" are in the Northern manufact- 
uring States. The "princes" to whom the tribute is paid are the 
people of this happy, favored region. Where, sir, are the poor 
oppressed tributaries, according to this report? Why, sir, in that 
sinking, ruined, wasted wilderness, the West. 

The author of this report, under the influence of a too fervid 
imagination, has spurned the shackles and broken through the em- 
barrassments arising from facts connected with the scheme of his 
theory. He represents the Northern manufacturing States as 
another imperial Rome, seated on her seven hills, rioting in the lux- 
uries of the despoiled and impoverished South, her treasuries burst- 
ing with the enormous wealth poured into them from the ravaged 
and desolated provinces of the West. Manufacturing is pictured as 
the finger of Midas, turning everything it touches into gold, while it 
would seem that growing grain and planting cotton brought only 
taxation without equivalent, poverty and unrequited toil. Sir, if all 
this were true, what would follow? The people of this country, 
however they may be excelled by other nations in the walks of let- 
ters and the polite arts, are known to be shrewd and well-informed, 
touching their own pecuniary interests. Such a people would be 



212 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

found rushing into the manufacturing districts, to reap harvests of 
wealth, and wallow in monopolies that drained every other portion 
of the Union, to swell their accumulation. Such a people would 
be found to shun, as a land of pestilence and death, the agricultural 
region, where nothing awaited them but taxation and consequent 
poverty. Sir, I regret that fact, and the truths of history compel 
me to spoil the beautiful theories and exact calculations of this ad- 
mirable report; but, sir, truth, however unwelcome, will be found, 
at last, the safest guide in wandering through the labyrinths of spec- 
ulation and theory. What, sir, is the fact? Why, for thirty years- 
the tide of emigration has been from this very land of wealth, and 
not to it. The exodus has been from the land of promise to the 
house of bondage. The shrewd Yankees have been flying from 
wealth, and ease, and monoply, in their own country, to this very 
oppressed grain and cotton-raising region of the West, seeking tax- 
ation, oppression and want. For these last three years, as every 
American (except the authors of this report) well knows, popula- 
tion from the Northern States has been plowing its way through the 
ice of the northern lakes, and bursting over the mountains, till the 
roads and rivers are literally choked with its masses. Where are 
these colonists going? To the West to raise grain and be taxed 1 
To the Southwest, to grow cotton and become poor ! Such is the 
reasoning of the report. Now, I beg to know whether it is not tax- 
ing our good nature quite too far to ask us to believe, and act upon, 
ingenious theories and long columns of figures, standing, as they do, 
opposed to facts, admitted, known and understood by every man in 
this Union over twenty-one years of age. To come to the conclu- 
sion at which the report has arrived, we are required to admit that 
man is blind to, and careless of, his own personal advantage. Nay, 
more ; the authors of this report require you to deny to our Ameri- 
can race the common instinct of all animal creation. The philoso- 
phy of this report teaches that man shuns ease, and desires toil ; that 
he hates pleasure, and loves pain ; that he eschews wealth, and 
courts poverty ; that he flies from power, and seeks subjection. All 
this jumble of contradictions we are required to admit as self-evident 
truths, simply to explain existing facts in a way not to contradict 
this erudite treatise on trade and finance. 

Mr. Speaker, I know it is impudent to obtrude our crude 
notions upon those to whom, from their position, we are taught to 
look for the lessons of wisdom; but I hope I may be allowed to 



ON THE SURPLUS REVENUE. 213 

inquire of the majority of the "Ways and Means," whether it had 
not been better had they reviewed sHghtly their philosophical read- 
ing, before they sat down to the arduous task of writing the produc- 
tion now before us? Had they turned to the pages of Bacon, with 
which I am sure they must be familiar, they would have found a 
maxim which, since the days of the great author of the "inductive 
philosophy," has never been disregarded. I think, if my memory is 
not at fault, it teaches that in all our researches after truth, we must 
reason " ex pj^ceconccssis aut ex prcEcogniiis.'' For the benefit of my 
unlettered Western friends, I am bound to render myself intelligible, 
by giving it in their own mother tongue. I will not be responsible 
for accuracy, but I am sure I shall not mistake the substance. The 
rule simply requires us always to reason from facts previously 
-admitted, or previously known to exist. _ 

Had this rule been observed, the authors of this report might 
have remembered that the oppressive tax on the cotton grower, paid 
in the shape of duties, was in some measure repaid him by a market 
for 350,000 bales of his cotton in this country every year, which 
market he could not have without the tax. It might have occurred 
to them that the grower of grain, who paid his proportion of the 
duty on protected articles, was not so badly off, since he found, in 
those "princely establishments" spoken of, a market for his flour, 
pork and beef, which, without these establishments furnishing a mar- 
ket, might have rotted on his hands. They might have thought the 
immense emigration to, and vast improvements of the West were 
facts worth attention, in ascertaining whether that West was op- 
pressed by the tariff^ in a way too grievous to be borne. Far be it 
from me to assert, sir, that these facts would have puzzled the gen- 
tlemen ; I only mean to say, sir, that vulgar and coarse minds would 
have been better satisfied with the report had some notice been taken 
of them. 

Before I take leave of the subject, I wish to notice a few other 
difficulties which oppose the consideration of this bill at this time, 
and which spring from a source that will not be disregarded by the 
majority of this House. It will be seen that the bill proposes a 
reduction of our income, within the next eighteen months, of seven 
millions. A very considerable portion of this reduction falls on the 
receipts of the present year. The question I ask here is this : Can 
the Treasury bear this curtailment of its resources now? To answer 
this, I appeal to an authority which, for these last two years, has 



214 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

never been questioned or doubted by the gentlemen who present 
this bill to the House. I allude to the annual report of the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, made on the 6th of December last. 

The receipts into the Treasury, from all sources, during 1837, 
are estimated at $24,000,000. I quote the very language of the 
report. Gentlemen will find I am right, by reference to Document 
No. 2 of this session, page 4. After enumerating the various 
sources (such as customs, public lands, etc.,) from which this 
amount is derived, the Secretary proceeds to compute the amount of 
expenditures for the present year. I shall give his own language, 
from the same document, page 5 : 

"The expenditures for all objects, ordinary and extraordinary, 
in 1837, including the contingent of only $1,000,000 for usual 
excesses in appropriations, beyond the estimates, are computed at 
$66,755,831, provided the unexpended appropriation at the end of 
this and the next year remain about equal." 

Here gentlemen will see that, instead of reducing the revenue 
down to the wants of the Government, our income, from all sources, 
in 1837, falls short of our expenditures, as estimated, nearly 
$3,000,000. If the Secretary is right, (and will the gentlemen of 
the majority be so bold as to say he is wrong?) then the effort 
should be to increase the taxes, to raise the revenue up to the actual 
wants of the Government. And, sir, if it were not for the five mill- 
ions, which are kept in reserve for extraordinary demands on the 
Treasury by the deposit bill of last year, according to the calcula- 
tions of Mr. Woodbury, we should be compelled now to increase 
the duties on foreign merchandise during the present year, or borrow 
money to meet the demands on the Treasury. Let us see what the 
Secretary further says, on page 5 of the same report. I again quote 
his own words: 

"From these calculations, it will be seen that, if the outstand- 
ing appropriations, unexpended at the close of 1837, be as large as 
at the close of 1836, and the other expenditures should agree with 
the above estimates, they would exceed the computed revenue accru- 
ing from all sources nearly $3,000,000, or sufficient to absorb more 
than half of that part of the present surplus which is not to be 
deposited with the several States. But if these outstanding appro- 
priations, at the close of 1837, should be much less than those in 
1836, as is probable, or should the accruing receipts be much less, 
or the appropriations made for 1837 be much larger than the esti- 



ON THE SURPLUS REVENUE. 215 

mates, a call will become necessary for a portion of the surplus 
deposited with the States, though it will not probably become neces- 
sary, except in one of those events." 

In the extract I have read, the Secretary has quite distinctly 
told us that the probability is we shall not only absord all the accru- 
ing revenue, and the five millions not deposited with the States, by 
the expenditures of 1837, but that the States will be called on to 
repay a portion of the money deposited with them, to meet the 
wants of the Government during the present year. How, sir, does 
the policy of reducing the revenue, as proposed in this bill, agree 
with this state of things ? Pass the bill, sir, and in eighteen months, 
it is said, you will save in the pockets of the people seven millions, 
which would otherwise be drawn from them by the laws now in 
force. And, in the same time, if you place any confidence in the 
Secretary of the Treasury, you will be compelled to take from the 
people of the States (who are to have the use of the money depos- 
ited with them ) an equal amount, if not more. What a miserable 
piece of bungling jugglery would this be! You simply take seven 
millions out of one pocket of the people and put it into the other, 
and gravely tell them you have saved to them seven millions of 
money by the process. Sir, the people of the States are not to be 
thus deceived. Let them look to this measure and its sure results. 
It is designed to bring about a state of things which will compel a 
call on them for the surplus revenue deposited with them, and which 
I am happy to see their legislatures are using to the general advan- 
tage of their constituents. 

But it is possible the friends of the Secretary will tell me his 
conjectures and calculations are not to be relied on. Shall I receive 
that answer from the gentlemen composing the majority here? 
Whose authority is it that is thus to be contemned? The very man 
whose behests have been laws to the Committee of Ways and Means 
ever since I have had the honor to be one of them. Sir, I have 
observed that it has been thought by that committee not only 
unwise, but even contumacious, factious, rebellious, to oppose any 
demand or to doubt any view taken by the Secretary of the Treas- 
ury. Nay, sir, I have thought sometimes that his friends on that 
committee considered it conclusive evidence of essential vulgarity; 
it was proof with them that a man had not seen "good society," if 
he presumed to question the propriety of any estimate or any req- 
uisition coming from that high and responsible source. So preval- 



216 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

ent were these opinions, that I fear I have sometimes yielded my 
assent to appropriations merely to preserve my character for "gen- 
tility" with the '' hatit ton" who compose the majority here, as they 
do in the committee of which I am a member. How is it, then, 
that we are now to dismiss all regard to the suggestions of this 
officer? Has not the President certified to you that he has dis- 
charged his duty with great ability and great fidelity? Do we not 
hear his friends everywhere extolling him to the skies for a prodigy 
of financial wisdom? Did not the President select him for his great 
and comprehensive knowledge of that most perplexing of all scien- 
ces — political economy; for his large and accurate acquaintance with 
the channels of trade and the sources of national wealth? Surely 
no one of the majority will doubt this. Now, sir, what respect is 
paid to his opinions, his "official opinions," by the bill and report 
on your table ? True, it cannot be denied, for the President has said 
it is so, that he has discharged his duty with fidelity. Is it not un- 
kind, then, in his friends, his "ministering servants "of the Ways 
and Means, to treat his labors with such cruel indifference? See him 
day and night watching the various currents of trade that bring 
wealth to the people and revenue to the Treasury ; sacrificing his 
ease and health to those "thoughts which waste the marrow and con- 
sume the brain ;" year after year denying himself, with stoical forti- 
tude, the gayeties of this most refined and fashionable city, brood- 
ing with ceaseless and anxious care over the Treasury, if not the 
treasure, he sits like "sad Prometheus fastened to his rock." And 
now, sir, as if they were determined that this Titan of the Treasury 
should realize the fate of this prototype of old, his ancient friends, 
it seems, by some magical change, turn tormentors, and are prepared 
to thrust their vulture-beaks into his liver, and, with remorseless 
voracity, devour his flesh, without ever terminating his pain. Sir, 
to drop figure, and speak in plain prosaic English, this bill asks you 
to treat every opinion of the present Secretary as stupid nonsense, 
and take as infallible truth the conjectures of this report in their 
stead. I ask the friends of the Secretary if they are prepared for 
this ; if not, they will vote with me to postpone the bill. 

Let it be remembered that the Secretary of the Treasury, whose 
views are diametrically opposed to the passage of any law looking to 
a reduction of the revenue, has given his opinions only a month ago. 
Surely he has not changed all his notions respecting our probable 
receipts in 1837 since he published his last report. I should be glad 



ON THE SURPLUS REVENU-E. 217 

if my colleague (Mr. Hamer), who told us the other day "he had 
lately been behind the curtain," would inform us whether, among 
other precious secrets, he had heard anything of a total change of 
the Secretary's opinions on this subject, within the last few weeks. 

Mr. Speaker, if the gentlemen who have brought forward this 
measure have emancipated themselves from all respect for the opin- 
ions and recommendations of your chief of finance — a respect bor- 
dering heretofore on absolute submission to his will — a little atten- 
tion to documents emanating from a quarter still more venerated, 
will exhibit them in an attitude of still more exalted independence. 
They are, however, (if I may be pardoned a conjecture so uncharit- 
able ) scarcely entitled to a position so enviable as that of self-relying 
and self-resolved freedom of action. Something of the dross of sel- 
fishness, unhappily for poor humanity, mingles in the composition 
of the purest motives, and stains the glory of the most sublime 
achievements. The committee have, I fear, betrayed something too 
much of a quality, or to speak phrenologically, an organ, of com- 
bativeness. They have not only spurned all the trammels of prece- 
dent, and despised all the opinions of the Secretary of the Treasury, 
but determined that paradox should, in themselves at least, have the 
merit of originality. They have set at naught, nay, scorned, the 
solemn injunctions of the President himself. Thus, they may be 
said to stand "alone in their glory." Sir, we have heard much of 
General Jackson's system of administration. If any meaning is to 
be attached to this word "system," which can stand against the arbi- 
trary dictation of party, it will be admitted that it implies a plan 
which comprehends an order of proceeding by principles extending 
over the time, at least, of a presidential term. In this view, we can 
at once see how great principles are as true and applicable in practice 
in 1837 as they were in 1836. This being admitted, let us see how 
the bill and report now before us harmonize with the doctrines on 
the same subject, expressed in strong and earnest advice to Congress, 
in the President's message a year ago. I quote the entire passage 
from the message of 1836: 

' ' Should Congress make new appropriations, in conformity with 
the estimates which will be submitted from the proper departments, 
amounting to about twenty-four millions, still the available surplus, 
at the close of the next year, after deducting all unexpended appro- 
priations, will probably not be less than six millions. This sum can, 
in my judgment, be now usefully applied to proposed improvements 



218 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

in our navy-yards, and to new national works, which are not enumer- 
ated in the present estimates, or to the more rapid completion of 
those already begun. Either would be constitutional and useful, 
and would render unnecessary any attempt, in our present peculiar 
condition, to divide the surplus revenue, or to reduce it any faster 
than will be effected by the existing laws. In any event, as the 
annual report from the Secretary of the Treasury will enter into 
details showing the probability of some decrease in the revenue dur- 
ing the next seven years, and a very considerable deduction in 1842, 
it is not recommended that Congress should undertake to modify the 
present tariff so as to disturb the principles on which the Compro- 
mise Act was passed. Taxation on some of the articles of general 
consumption, which are not in competition with our own produc- 
tions may be, no doubt, so diminished as to lessen, to some extent, 
the source of this revenue ; and the same object can also be assisted 
by more liberal provisions for the subjects of public defense, which, 
in the present state of our prosperity and wealth, may be expected 
to engage your attention. If, however, after satisfying all the 
demands which can arise from these sources, the unexpended balance 
in the Treasury should still continue to increase, it would be better 
to bear with the evil until the great changes contemplated in our tar- 
iff laws have occurred, and shall enable us to revise the system with 
that care and circumspection which are due to so delicate and impor- 
tant a subject." 

Here gentlemen will perceive that the bill and report are at war 
with the President's opinion, solemnly expressed, on the same sub- 
ject. Mark, however, the terms employed to designate the act of 
1833; he calls it the "Compromise Act." As he anticipates a con- 
siderable reduction in our revenue during the next seven years, and 
especially in 1842, he warns us "not to disturb the principles on 
which the Compromise Act of 1833 was passed." Spoken like a 
man sensible of the obligations of legislative and public faith ! Sen- 
timents worthy the chief magistrate of a nation governed by law, 
whose duty it is to see the obligations of law faithfully observed ! 
He speaks familiarly of the "principles" upon which the Compro- 
mise Act was passed. What does he mean by the "principles" of 
that act? Nothing else than these mutual stipulations by the great 
contending parties to that compact, providing for a stable, fixed rate 
of duties, which should remain, as the act itself expresses it, till 
June, 1842. The bill disregards the principles, or rather violates 



ON THE SURPLUS REVENUE. 219' 

and destroys the principles, on which the Compromise Act was 
passed. The report, instead of anticipating a reduction of revenue 
by the laws now in force, goes about facilitating that reduction by 
legislating in a way contrary to the whole tenor of the President's 
opinion which I have quoted. Sir, I call on the Chairman of the 
Ways and Means to say when, before now, he has ventured on a 
system of policy not approved by the "speech from the throne." I 
ask him why he did not bring forward this bill last year, when every 
possible expedient was resorted to to get rid of a surplus, which was 
about to go to the States, as it did go, under a law so odious to the 
Prince Regent, who is to mount the throne the 4th of the coming- 
March? A bill reducing the revenue then would have saved the 
troubles and dangers of a deposit with the States. That was the time, 
if ever, to have urged its passage. Since the surplus has gone to the 
States, no reason exists for reduction. Do not gentlemen see that a 
most uncharitable view may plausibly be taken of their course? It 
will be said, that as the President had forbidden you to disturb the 
Compromise, and at that time had a year of his reign remaining, in 
which his power of reward and punishment could be exerted, you 
then dare not incur his displeasure ; but now, when only six weeks of 
that reign are left, to be spent in the languor of convalescence, or it 
may be in the agony of pain, you may treat the opinions of your old 
chief with contempt, relying on the sure protection of the Executive 
elect. Of the Chairman of the Ways and Means, (whom, if I may 
not number among my friends, I cannot call my foe,) I fear it may 
be said that his eye has been so dazzled by the glitter of expected 
coronets, under the new reign, that he has lost sight of all regard for 
the principles and authority of that which is now almost numbered 
with the past. "High-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect." 
What a striking exhibition is here of the emptiness and vanity of 
earthly renown and mere human power! But yesterday, and, like 
the mighty first Caesar, ' ' the word of Andrew Jackson might have 
stood against the world," and now, "none so poor as to do him rev- 
erence." Deserted by all his old and faithful followers, abandoned 
by those adoring crowds of self-styled Democrats, I alone, an obscure 
and derided aristocrat from the far West, as our nomenclature has it, 
I alone stand by the desolate old man, vindicating his opinions, and 
stemming, as I best can, that torrent of contempt poured out by his 
own former friends, which is likely to pursue and overwhelm him in 
his retreat from the scene of his glory. 



220 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

How are we to account for this singular event? Singular indeed 
it is, apparently, but really what was to be looked for. Politicians 
who belong to what I may denominate, for the sake of distinction, 
the school of idolatry, do not worship the setting, but always the 
rising sun. No sooner, therefore, do we see the level beams of the 
retiring hero's setting orb begin to melt into the twilight, than, as 
we might expect, the thick crowds turn wistfully to a dubious and 
uncertain dawn in an opposite quarter of the heavens. With char- 
acteristic fitfulness it now shoots a gleam of faint light above the 
horizon, and anon withdraws it from sight. At last, "half con- 
cealed, half disclosed," it rises on the world, and hither the multi- 
tudes repair to "worship and adore." 

Thus, and thus only, can we account, sir, for those eccentric 
movements and strange contradictions which crowd themselves into 
the annals of the little and great aspirants after the perishable honors 
of this world ; and this bill we are to receive as the first offering upon 
the altars erected to our new divinity. It is in this way our new 
sovereign will signalize the beginning of his reign. He will destroy, 
in the first year, three hundred millions of property, all for the good 
of his loving subjects ; and, with the blessing of God, which may be 
most reasonably expected to attend so beneficent a work, proceeding 
at this rate, he will succeed, in his reign of four years, in destroying 
twelve hundred millions of the nation's property. Thus will our 
excellent Democratic Government enable our people to feel the force 
of that consoling declaration of Scripture, "blessed are the poor." 

Mr. Speaker, I should be happy to spare myself the pain which 
it always gives me to recur to former transactions in a way likely to 
excite unpleasant feelings ; but I have the misfortune to differ with 
the majority of a committee of which I am a member ; I am there- 
fore compelled, in self-defense, to give every reason in my power for 
the course my conscience impels me to pursue. 

The House are already apprized that the bill on the table pre- 
supposes a surplus of revenue as certain to accrue within the next 
eighteen months. The existence of this surplus is the evil the bill is 
intended to prevent. Whether this apprehended surplus will accrue 
is matter of opinion. I wish, then, to present another, and only 
one other, document, to show the reliance to be placed upon the 
opinions of that very majority of the Ways and Means, who now 
require us, on the faith of their opinion and conjecture merely, to 
pass this bill. Many gentlemen will remember that various projects 



ON THE SURPLUS REVENUE. 221 

for the disposition of the surplus revenue were referred to this same 
committee, composed of the same persons last year which now com- 
pose it. On the 1st of July, 1836, just before the close of the last 
session, and only about six months ago, a report was made from 
which I propose to read an extract. It will be seen by this extract 
what were the opinions of the committee then, as to any surplus 
which might possibly come into the Treasury, and also their prog- 
nostics as to the probability of such an event happening at all. 

After disposing of a variety of topics, and reviewing our past 
history, as usual, complaining with becoming indignation of bad cur- 
rency in England and America, and deploring the existence of an 
evil spirit of speculation, notwithstanding the late death of the 
United States Bank, the report concludes as follows: 

"Our revenue from customs and public lands, after 1837, is not 
likely to exceed the expenditures of Government. It is, therefore, 
important that, whatever surplus we may have in the meantime, 
whether deposited with the local banks or in the State treasuries, as 
is proposed after the 1st of January next, should be preserved, to be 
applied to the extraordinary purposes we have been compelled tO' 
provide for during this session, and for similar expenditures, which, 
in the present state of our Indian relations, may again become nec- 
essary. On the balance in the Treasury on the 1st of January next, 
and the revenue which may be received in 1837, there will be 
charged, in addition to the current expenditures of that year, and all 
extraordinary demands that may occur, probably near fifteen millions 
for appropriations authorized at the present session, making the 
claims upon the Treasury in the next year greater than in the pres- 
ent, while the revenue of 1837 will be considerably less than that of 
1836, and leaving the surplus at the close of that year much dimin- 
ished. As our income will not probably then exceed our current 
expenditures, we must rely entirely upon what surplus we may have 
to defray all expenses which may become necessary in extinguishing 
Indian titles to lands, removing the tribes beyond the Mississippi, 
and for other subjects of expenditure of an extraordinary character." 

I beg the House to notice with what oracular gravity the proph- 
ets then uttered their predictions: "Our revenue from customs and 
public lands, after 1837, is not likely to exceed the expenditures of 
Government." We are then kindly, but still peremptorily, admon- 
ished to husband our surplus, if any, to meet those exigencies which 
every wise and considerate man should always be prepared to expect 



222 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

in human concerns. Again, at the close we are thus addressed: 
"As our income will not probably then exceed our current expendi- 
tures, we must rely entirely upon what surplus we may have to 
■defray all the expenses which may become necessary in extinguish- 
ing Indian titles to land," etc. So spoke the prophets six months 
since; and now, up jumps the Chairman of the Ways and Means, 
"modest as Morning when she eyes the youthful Phcebus," and full 
of the same inspiration that burned in the bosom of the seer in July 
Jast; and, in the same solemn prophetic tones, he tells us our income 
will exceed our expenditures. Now we are admonished not to hus- 
band any surplus we may have, but to reduce the revenue by seven 
millions in the next year and a half, so that no surplus whatever shall 
remain. 

Sir, when I see with what ruthless hand the committee has torn 
to pieces every shred of character, for either ability or fidelity, of 
the Secretary of the Treasury, and how, with the same destructive 
appetency, they have trampled down the authority of the President 
himself; and, lastly, when I see with what ridiculous gravity these 
two reports of the same committee, differing only six months in 
their ages, contradict each other, I hope the gentlemen will pardon 
the degrading analogy, but really I can think of nothing like them 
but the celebrated "cats of Kilkenny;" they have at last literally 
swallowed each other. Sir, I have done with this subject. I know 
I have detained the House already too long; for this I must find an 
apology in the fact that I had not the most distant thought of 
addressing the House on this subject till the afternoon of yesterday. 
Without further time for arrangement of topics, I could not hope to 
preserve that order which is so favorable to brevity as well as per- 
spicuity. Let me again implore the House to put this subject at 
once at rest. The worst evil that can come is a surplus of a few 
millions ; and even this the highest officer in the Government con- 
nected with your financial system tells you is impossible. But if it 
should occur, send it, as you have done before, to the States, where 
it can be used as well as kept. If this surplus is an evil, in that way 
you can rid yourselves of it as easily as the shipwrecked apostle 
shook off the serpent that fastened upon his hand. At all events, 
let your people rest one year from your miserable experiments. Let 
your former blunders teach you some caution. In your attempt to 
bring about a gold currency, you have flooded the land with bank- 
notes. In destroying the United State Bank monoply, you have 



ON THE SURPLUS REVENUE. 223 

raised up a greater monopoly in public lands. Now you are to try 
the experiment of breaking down what are called, in this report, the 
"princely establishments of the North." Sir, you will not, cannot, 
at least now, effect this last and most cruel experiment. Let us then 
put this bill quietly to sleep somewhere; let it rest in peace till 1842 ; 
then, perhaps, it may re-appear among us under other auspices, and 
with better claims to our regard. 



ON THE CUMBERLAND ROAD. 



In the House of Representatives of the United States, Friday, April 20, 1838, 
the House having again resumed the consideration of the bill making appropriations 
for the continuation of the Cumberland Road through Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, 
Mr. Corwin addressed the House as follows : 

Mr. Speaker: 

I perceive the House is unusually impatient of this debate. I 
am very reluctant, at any time, to lift up my voice in this Babel of 
confused voices, but especially so now ; nor would I delay the final 
vote for a moment, did I not remember that this bill has been 
already once rejected but a day or two since, and from the tone of 
discussion this morning, I have too much reason to fear it will meet 
a similar fate by the vote now about to be taken. I may add, also, 
that I feel unwilling to permit the remarks of the two gentlemen 
from South Carolina ( Mr. Clowney and Mr. Pickens ) to pass to the 
press, and from thence into the public mind, without an attempt, at 
least, to correct the erroneous impressions in which, according to 
my views, they abound. 

The bill now under discussion, for the continuation of the Cum- 
berland Road, is nothing more nor less than the continuance of a 
system of regular annual expenditure, begun in 1806, and continued, 
with the exception of the short period of the war with Great Britain, 
every year up the present time. The estimates for this appropria- 
tion are as regularly and habitually sent in by the Treasury depart- 
ment as are those for the salary of the President and other public 
servants, or those for the support of the army. If a continued per- 
severance in the prosecution of any public measure for thirty years 
cannot be looked to as settling the public utility of such measure, 
or the fixed policy and duty of this Government, beyond the reach 
of cavil or objection, then, indeed, may it be truly said that we are 
a people without common forethought, a Government without any 
established policy, a confederacy without any common end or 
aim whatever. (224) 



ON THE CUMBERLAND ROAD. 225 

The construction of the road provided for in this bill, from the 
waters of the Atlantic to the Mississippi river, was originated during 
the administration of Mr. Jefferson. It has received the countenance 
of every shade and complexion of political party in Congress, at 
various periods since, and has been sanctioned by the approval of 
every Executive from that time to the present. It has thus become 
incorporated with your policy. It makes a part of the creed of all 
parties, and, as it advances in its progress, is woven into the texture 
of those systems of internal improvement going forward in each of 
the six States through which it passes. A measure thus persever- 
ingly continued so long, sustaining itself, through perpetual conflicts, 
and every vicissitude of our history for the last thirty years, comes 
recommended at once to the mind as something necessary — some- 
thing which has been found indispensable, and not merely convenient. 
It stands in your policy like one of those truths in philosophy which 
is not questioned because it has received the general assent of all rea- 
sonable men. Speaking of such a measure, this morning, the gentle- 
man from South Carolina (Mr. Pickens, richly imbued as his mind is 
with philological learning) could find no terms whereby to character- 
ize this bill less odious than swuidling and plunder. Then by a dex- 
trous evasion of the substance, and a strict observance of the letter of 
the rules of courtesy in debate, the gentleman has been able, by fair 
inference, to denounce the supporters of the bill as the prompters of 
"swindling," the aiders and abettors of "plunder." [Here Mr. 
Pickens rose and observed that he had not applied the terms stated 
by Mr. Corwin to the bill, or those who supported it. He had 
stated, in argument, the case of a general system of taxation, and 
an appropriation to partial and local purposes, and denominated that 
as swindling and plunder.] I understand the gentlemen as he ex- 
plains himself. He has made a speech against this bill. He 
has endeavored to illustrate, in various ways, its iniquity and impol- 
icy. He denounces this road as local in its character, and not of 
general utility. He shows that the money appropriated is a part of 
the common revenue raised from the whole Union. He then speaks 
of general taxation, and local appropriations, and calls this last a 
system of swindling and plunder. It is but the difference between a 
positive assertion and a conclusion from premises stated. Sir, I 
desire, when thus arraigned, to submit my defense. If I am not 
mistaken, the gentleman will find this system, and this road, have 
been cherished and heartily supported by men, living and dead, to 
16 



226 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

whom even he would be wilHng to defer in such matters, and with 
whose memories and character he would not associate the folly and 
criminality which, in his over-wrought zeal, he fancies he has discov- 
ered in this bill. 

Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to elaborate an essay upon this 
road, but I must be permitted to notice, for a few moments, the very 
summary method by which gentlemen with great apparent ease 
acquit their consciences of all censure for voting down now and for- 
ever all further appropriations of the kind. Yesterday the gentle- 
man from South Carolina [Mr. Rhett] spoke of the supposed im- 
portance of the road west of Wheeling for military purposes, as an 
idea too ridiculous to merit a moment's serious thought. It seemed 
to him perfectly idle to imagine that ordnance or military stores 
would ever be transported by land westward while the Ohio river 
remained, and so, with undoubting confidence and the utmost self 
complacency, he assures us that a "fool's cap and bells" should be 
bestowed upon any one who entertains a contrary opinion. Sir, I 
hope I may be allowed, with great humility, not indeed to deny to 
the conclusions of the gentleman the greatest certainty possible in 
matters of this kind, but merely to suggest a fact or two which it 
may be well to consider a moment before we swear to the infallibil- 
ity of his judgment on this millitary question. In the first place, 
the road and river, though both running from east to west, from 
Wheeling to the Mississippi, are distanced from each other, from 
north to south, from ninety to one hundred and fifty miles at various 
points. I think it possible in the chances of war that it might be- 
come necessery to march a military force directly from Wheeling to 
Columbus, in Ohio, or to the capitals of Indiana or Illinois, and to 
take along with such force a train of artillery. Would the Ohio 
river, think you, be so obliging as to leave its ancient bed and bear 
your cannon on its waves across the country from Wheeling to 
Columbus, in Ohio, and from thence by Indianapolis to Springfield, 
in Illinois? If we could suspend the laws of the physical world, or 
if a miracle could be wrought at our command, then the confident 
opinion of the gentleman, that this road is, in no sense, of military 
importance, would, in my poor judgment, appear somewhat plausible. 
But the gentleman seems also to forget that the waters of the Ohio, 
in spite of our wishes to the contrary, will freeze into hard ice. For 
three months in the winter it is not at all times navigable. On 
account of shoals it is not navigable at a time of low water in sum- 



ON THE CUMBERLAND ROAD. 227 

mer. And hence it would follow, that your military movements in 
that quarter, if ever necessary, would have to wait for the floods of 
summer and the thaws of winter. But I will not venture to oppose 
any speculative notions of mine to an opinion so confidently enter- 
tained by several gentlemen from the South who have spoken in this 
debate. I will fortify myself by an authority which I am sure will 
command, as I know it should, infinitely more regard than any opin- 
ion or argument of mine. 

It will be remembered, Mr. Speaker, .that this Government, soon 
after the late war with Great Britain, admonished by the experience 
of that war, determined on prosecuting a general system of military 
defense. To this end, General Bernard was brought from France, 
and placed at the head of the engineer corps. In the year 1824 it 
became the duty of this officer, under the direction of Mr. John C. 
Calhoun, then Secretary of War, to survey and report to Congress 
such rivers to be improved, and canals and roads to be constructed 
all over our territory, as were conceived to be of national importance 
for commercial or military purposes. On the 3rd of December, 
1824, Mr. Calhoun submitted to the President, and through him to 
Congress, the result of the labors of this corps, accompanied with 
his own reflections and recommendations. It will be found, on 
examining that document, that this very Cumberland road is classed 
with other great works of internal improvement, which, in the opin- 
ion of Mr. Calhoun, were necessary to the defense of the country in 
war, and that the road now under the consideration of the House is 
there pronounced to be of "national importance," This was the 
opinion of Mr. Calhoun in 1824. The construction of the Cumber- 
land road, as a work of commercial importance, as well as a sure 
means of binding in union the Eastern and Western portions of our 
country, had been urged upon Congress by Mr. Gallatin, as Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, as early as 1803, and by Mr. Giles and Mr. 
John Randolph, of Virginia, in reports which they respectively sub- 
mitted to Congress about the same time. Before the navigation of 
the rivers of the West by steam, no one could cast his eye upon the 
map of the Western States, and not perceive at once the incalculable 
value of this road to the commerce of both East and West. If the 
application of steam to navigation has diminished the importance of 
the road, this was known and considered by Mr. Calhoun, when he 
made the report to which I have referred. In 1824 the steamboats 
were flying on their wings of fire from Pittsburg to New Orleans, as 



228 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

they are now; yet Mr. Calhoun pronounced the Cumberland road 
tJien a work of "national importance." I beg the gentleman from 
South Carolina, who spoke this morning [Mr. Pickens], to peruse 
that report of his friend, Mr. Calhoun. I beg him to ponder well 
the magnificent and expensive works of internal improvement there 
commended to the favorable regard of this Government. The 
waters of the Chesapeake and Ohio were to flow together. From 
the Ohio the chain was to be stretched across that State to the north- 
ern lakes, and thus the North and South are to be bound up 
together, one in their internal interests, as they are one and identical 
in their national and extra territorial relations. But I need not par- 
ticularize; what I have specified comprehends not the twentieth 
part of those works in magnitude and expense then recommended 
by Mr. Calhoun as proper to be constructed by the Federal Govern- 
ment, at the expense of the common Treasury of the nation. 

The Cumberland road, as I have said, is one among the rest 
there recommended as of "national importance." Mr. Speaker, I 
must beg the indulgence of the House to read a single paragraph 
from the document referred to. After speaking of the great advan- 
tages to the whole Union of one of the great Western works to 
which I have already adverted, the Secretary proceeds: 

"The advantages, in fact, from the completion of this single 
work, as proposed, would be so extended and ramified throughout 
these great divisions of our country, already containing so large a 
portion of our population and destined in a few generations to out- 
number the most populous States of Europe, as to leave in that 
quarter no other work for the execution of the General Government, 
excepting only the extcnsioii of the Cimiberland road from Wheeling to St. 
Louis, which is also conceived to be of tiational importance." 

Now, Mr. Speaker, if, in the bill under discussion, there be any 
feature akin to "swindling and plunder," I ask the gentlemen from 
the South to return to that gigantic project of kindred works pro- 
jected by their own justly favorite son, and tell me in what vocabu- 
lary among the "tongues of men" they can find epithets odious 
enough to shadow forth the diabolical tendencies of his plan. Sir, if 
this bill be swindling, his scheme is robbery. If this bill be petty 
plunder, his plan was wholesale desolation. But, good or bad, 
whichever it be, we have his authority for it. Well do I remember, 
sir, in what high esteem the Secretary of War [Mr. Calhoun] was 
held throughout the West in the year 1824. The sober affections of 



ON THE CUMBERLAND ROAD. 229 

the aged, and the ardent hearts of the young, all, all were attracted 
to him. His altars blazed everywhere throughout the broad valleys 
of the West. Right loyally and prodigally did we pour out our 
incense upon our shrine; and lo ! what now do we see? While the 
smoke of our sacrifice yet ascends in gathering clouds; while the 
distended nostrils of our deity inhale its grateful odors almost to suf- 
focation ; he, in whom our affections were all enshrined ; he, the 
author of this our faith; he, the chosen object, it may be, of our 
very profane and heathenish, but sincere idolatry; he, with the 
selected high-priests still of his faith, suddenly rush upon us from 
the South, overturn their own altars, and scourge us, their mis- 
guided, but still honest, devotees, from the temple themselves had 
erected. Not content with this, but determined, it seems, to con- 
sign both the authors and the followers of the creed to hopeless 
infamy, they have compared their own system of policy to a system 
of plunder, and themselves and us to a combination of swindlers. 

Let not the gentlemen from the South suppose that I quote the 
authority of Giles, and Randolph, and Gallatin, in 1802 and 1803, 
and Mr. Calhoun as late as 1824, to fix upon Southern gentlemen 
the sin of inconsistency, or sinister motives, for change of principle. 
No, this is not my motive. I wish to convince, and not to taunt the 
gentlemen. I wish them to pause upon their own present opinions, 
and to compare them with the views of those, living and dead, to 
whom I have referred, in the hope that in the light of those great 
minds — that light that has been to them "a pillar of fire by night," 
in all their political wanderings heretofore — might, haply, now serve 
to keep them in the right way. I beg the gentleman from South 
Carolina [Mr. Rhett], who so readily voted "cap and bells" to the 
heads of such as entertained particular notions, which he condemned 
of the utility of this road, to take back his gifts a moment, and see 
whether he may not possibly be found unawares placing these 
badges of imbecility and folly on the graves of Randolph and Giles ; 
and whether, if he is to be impartial and just in the distribution of 
such honors, he may not be compelled to pass over into the chamber 
of the Senate, and bestow one set of them upon the illustrious Sena- 
tor from his own State. Mr. Speaker, I venture to suggest to the 
gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Rhett], in a spirit of sincere 
respect, that there is a posterity for him as well as those great and 
good men whose opinions he sets at naught. I hope I may without 
offense, suppose it possible that in some distant day, when this very 



230 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

road, paved from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, shall be crowded 
with commerce, and groan beneath its load of travel ; when, by the 
speed with which your armies can pass over it, from the center to 
the remote border of your country, some fearful rebellion is happily 
quelled, or, for the same reasons, some insolent foreign foe is speed- 
ily repulsed, the age that then is may possibly remove the "cap and 
bells " from the last resting-place of Giles and Randolph, where he 
has hung them, and look for the tomb of another, as better deserv- 
ing the honor of these significant emblems. Sir, when I glance at 
the history of this road ; when I remember that it was begun in the 
administration of Jefferson, and approved by him ; when I group 
together the other illustrious names who have for thirty years also 
given it their sanction, I am prone to believe, my own judgment 
concurring, that I am right in carrying on what has been thus begun. 
I cannot reverse the settled and long unquestioned decisions of the 
fathers and founders of the Republic, upon the faith of the last 
night's dream. I cannot so readily believe that the sages of past 
times violated the Constitution to make a road. I cannot see why, 
if that were so, it has not been discovered in the lapse of thirty 
years. Sir, I know much is said, and truly, at this day, of that 
advance of the human mind. I know, sir, it was written thus long 
ago, "Men shall go to and fro, and knowledge shall increase." All 
this I know, and yet I cannot quite believe that us young gentlemen 
here, in this year of grace, 1838, have now, this morning, descended 
to the bottom of the well where truth lies, as is said, and for the first 
time brought up and exposed her precious secrets to the long-anx- 
ious eyes of the inquiring world. Just as slow am I, Mr. Speaker, 
to believe that the great men who gave us a country forty years ago, 
did not understand what its true interests were. They who pro- 
jected this great work were not men to rush into hasty and ill-con- 
sidered measures. They had been accustomed to settle the founda- 
tions of society, and they did their work, in all things, under the 
habitual reflection and responsibility which their immortal labors 
inspired. Sir, let us beware, in the midst of our party conflicts, 
how we hastily question their calm resolves. Let us take care, in 
this day's work, with the hoarse clamor of party resounding ever in 
our ears, that we are not deaf to the voice of wisdom, which calls 
out to us from the past. 

Mr. Speaker, I have thus far considered the bill upon your 
table as providing for one work, itself a part of a system of "inter- 



ON THE CUMBERLAND ROAD. 231 

nal improvement." I have referred so far to the opinions of men 
whom we are accustomed to regard as good authority, to show that 
the road in question has been regarded as one of national import- 
ance, and as such, is within the acknowledged powers of Congress. 
But, sir, this bill rests its claims to our support upon a basis far less 
liable to those assaults which consider it only in the isolated view of 
expediency. It is, in truth, a bill for the fulfillment of a contract. 
It proposes to carry into affect a compact, to the performance of 
which the faith of this Government is pledged to three sovereign 
States of this Union. I know, sir, that many gentlemen here are 
familiar with this view of the subject, but I feel equally certain that 
there are others who are not. 

■The gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Pope] the other day dis- 
cussed this branch of the subject with great ability, but I am im- 
pressed with the necessity of presenting it more at length, even at 
the risk of being tedious. I shall endeavor, by a reference to acts 
of Congress and public documents, to show that we are bound to 
construct this road as far as the Mississippi river ; that we have con- 
tracted to do so ; that we have received the consideration for this 
contract from the States of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. If I can es- 
tablish these as facts, it will follow that to stop the road short of the 
Mississippi would be a gross neglect of duty, and a flagrant breach 
of national faith. 

In the year 1787, "the territory northwest of the Ohio," com- 
prehended what are now the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michi- 
gan and Wisconsin territory. The celebrated ordinance of 1787, 
among other things, provided that there should be three States at 
least out of this territory, which should be bounded by the Ohio 
river on the south, the Mississippi on the west, and a specified line 
on the north. This last line, many gentlemen here will recollect, 
was finally established as the northern boundary of Ohio, Indiana 
and Illinois, very lately, on the admission of Michigan into the 
Union. 

Early in the year 1802 the eastern division of this territory peti- 
tioned Congress to provide for its admission into the Union, under 
the ordinance of 1787, which provided that certain portions of the 
territory, having 60,000 inhabitants, should be entitled to come into 
the Union as sovereign States. This application, with a census 
showing the number of inhabitants then within what are the present 
limits of Ohio, was referred to a committee in the House of Repre- 



232 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

sentatives, of which William B. Giles, of Virginia, was the chairman. 
On the 4th of March, 1802, Mr. Giles made a favorable report 
on this petition, and, among other things, referring to certain mat- 
ters of compact, in the ordinance of 1787, the report concludes in 
these words: 

"The committee, taking into consideration these stipulations, 
viewing the lands of the United States within the said territory as an 
important source of revenue ; deeming it also of the highest import- 
ance to the stability and permanence of the union of the Eastern and 
Western parts of the United States, that the intercourse should, as 
far as possible, be facilitated, and their interests be liberally and mu- 
tually consulted and promoted — are of opinion that the provisions of 
the aforesaid articles may be varied for the reciprocal advantage of 

the United States and the State of , when formed, and the 

people thereof; they have therefore deemed it proper, in lieu of said 
provisions, to offer the following propositions to the convention of 
the Eastern State of said territory, when formed, for their free 
acceptance or rejection, without any condition or restraint whatever, 
whicJi if accepted by the convention, shall be obligatory on the United 
States." 

The report then sets forth three propositions to be submitted to 
the Ohio convention ; the third proposition being the one applicable 
to this subject, is in these words: 

"That one-tenth part of the net proceeds of the lands lying 
in the said States, hereafter sold by Congress, after deducting all 
expenses incident to the same, shall be applied to the laying out and 
making turnpike or other roads leading from the navigable waters 
emptying into the Atlantic to the Ohio, a7id contitmed afterzvard 
through the State of , such roads to be laid out under the author- 
ity of Congress, with the consent of the several States through which 
the road shall pass, provided that the convention of said State shall 
on its part assent that every and each tract of land sold by Congress 
shall be and remain exempt from any tax laid by order or under 
authority of the States, whether for State, county, or township, or 
any other purpose whatever, for the term of ten years from and after 
the completion of the payment of the purchase money on such tract 
to the United States." 

Attached to this report is an official letter addressed by Mr. 
Gallatin, then Secretary of the Treasury, to Mr. Giles, dated Wash- 
ington, 13th February, 1802. Mr. Gallatin, deeply impressed with 



ON THE CUMBERLAND ROAD. 233 

the advantage to the Government of this contract with the new 
State, urges it upon Congress as a means of increasing the value of 
the pubhc lands owned by the Government, and then pledged for 
the payment of the national debt. After stating a variety of argu- 
ments to that effect, he says: 

"It follows that, if it be in a high degree, as I believe it is, iJie 
interest of tlie United States to obtain some further security against an 
injurious sale, under the Territorial or State laws, of lands sold by 
them to individuals, justice, not less than policy, requires that it 
should be obtained by common consent, and it is not to be expected 
that the new State Legislatures should assent to any alterations in 
their system of taxation which may effect the revenues of the State, 
unless an equivalent is offered." 

He then goes on to insist that 

"Such conditions, instead of diminishing, would greatly imrease the value of 
the lafids, and, therefore, of the pledge to the public creditors." 

The last paragraph in this document urges another argument in 
favor of this road, which I hope will not be overlooked by gentle- 
men who consider it a boon merely to the young States of the West. 
Mr. Gallatin thought this road would be highly advantageous to the 
old States, and he addresses their cupidity accordingly, in these 
words : 

"The roads will be as beneficial to the parts of the Atlantic 
States through which they are to pass, and 7iearly as muck so to a con- 
sidet able portion of the Union, as the Northwestern Territory itself" 

On the 30th of April, 1802, an act was passed authorizing the 
people of the eastern division of the Northwestern Territory to form 
a Constitution and State Government. In that law the proposition, 
somewhat modified, is inserted and by Congress proposed to the 
Convention which was to assemble the next summer. In the act just 
quoted, five per cent, of the proceeds of the lands within the State 
are proposed as a fund to make a road "from the Atlantic waters to 
and through the State, and the condition of the grant is, that the State 
shall abstain from taxing the lands sold by the United States for five 
years from and after the day of their sale." 

In the month of November, 1802, the Convention of Ohio 
assented to the proposition contained in the act of April, 1802, with 
this modification : That three-fifths of the five per cent, fund should 
be appropriated to laying out and making roads within the State, and 
under its direction and authority, leaving two per cent, on all the 



234 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

sales of land within the State to be appropriated to a road leading 
from the Atlantic waters to and ilirougJi the State of Ohio. To this 
Congress expressly assented at its next session, upon the recommen- 
dation of a committee, of which John Randolph, of Virginia, was 
the chairman, and thus the compact was closed. Here let it be 
observed that compacts, of the same kind and in the same words, 
have been concluded between the States of Indiana and Illinois, and 
this Government, at the times when these States were respectively- 
admitted into the Union. In this way, following up the project 
begun in 1802, of constructing a road "from the Atlantic waters to 
the Mississippi river," passing from the Ohio the whole distance to 
the Mississippi, through your own public lands, it was carried out by 
compact with each State, as soon as it became capable of entering 
into such engagements, by assuming the powers and dignity of a 
sovereign State of the Union. 

I have said, Mr. Speaker, that you had contracted to construct a 
road from the Atlantic waters, through the new States of the West, 
to the Mississippi river. I have shown, by reference to public docu- 
ments, that the motives to this contract were, first, to increase the 
value of the public domain, to and tJuvugh which this road was to 
pass, and thus put money into the national purse, to pay the national 
debt; secondly, to bind together in union of interest the East and 
West, by creating a quick and constant intercourse between the 
Western and Atlantic divisions of your common country. Now the 
first main object, the increase in value of the public lands, never 
could be effected, unless you carried the road, not merely ''to and 
thongJi'' Ohio, where, in 1802, your public lands for sale chiefly lay, 
but would only be fairly realized by carrying the road "/<? and 
through'' each of the other Western States, as your lands, by the 
extinguishment of the Indian title in these States, should come into 
market. These were the views upon which you set out, in your 
propositions of compact, at first. These were your ''indncevicnts" 
held out to Ohio, and repeated in each of your engagements to 
make the Cumberland road with Indiana and Illinois. With these 
determinations, asserted through your public and authorized agents, 
you ask of the Western States, in consideration of inducements thus 
held out, to do what? To grant you a trifling sum of money to aid 
you in your effort to improve the value of your own lands? No. 
To allow you to pass through their territory in such way as you 
choose? No. No such inconsiderable demands as these were on 



ON THE CUMBERLAND ROAD. 235 

your lips. You demanded of them to surrender up for your ben- 
efit the tax on nearly all the property in these States for five years. 
In other words, you asked, and you received, too, into the public 
Treasury of the Union, a direct tax for five years on all, or nearly 
all, the lands in three large and populous States. You said to the 
purchaser of your lands, buy of us, and your property thus acquired 
shall be free from taxation for five years ; and thus you got an 
increase of price paid to you, what otherwise would have gone, in 
the shape of taxes, into the coffers of the States. This is true in 
regard to almost all the lands in the three States of Ohio, Indiana 
and Illinois. Each of these States was admitted into the Union 
with barely sixty thousand inhabitants. The quantity of lands then 
sold was so inconsiderable as to make no sort of change in the esti- 
mated value of the right we surrendered. Take Ohio, for example : 
She gave up to you her right to tax all lands then unsold for five 
years after they should be sold. She had then sixty thousand inhab- 
itants, she has now probably one million and a half of population, 
and there are yet public lands unsold in that State. Thus you can 
see that we have released to you our right to tax lands in the hands 
of nineteen-twentieths of our people for five successive years. This, 
too, was done at a time when there was scarcely any other subject of 
taxation but lands, and when, in the infancy of our several State 
governments, the first movements of political and social machinery 
require heavy expense from those least able to bear it. Let us see 
what it was in money that we gave. It will be found, on examina- 
tion, that the three States interested cover an area, according to the 
best authorities, of something over one hundred and twenty millions 
of acres of land. Deducting something for reservations made before 
the compact, we may safely estimate the lands then to be sold in the 
three Western States at one hundred and twenty millions of acres. 
We gave up the right to tax these for five years from the day of sale. 
What has been the usual rate of taxation upon lands in these States? 
I think I may fairly affirm that the rate of taxation on lands in the 
three States interested has been one dollar on every hundred acres. 
This, levied on one hundred and twenty millions of acres, would 
give one million two hundred thousand dollars per annum, which, in 
five years, the time for which the tax was surrendered by the States, 
would give the sum of six millions of dollars. This sum have we 
paid into your Treasury for your promise to complete the road in 
question. In addition to this, we surrendered our sovereign right 



236 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

of taxation within our own limits — a right itself so dear to States 
that, as matter of pride, just pride, its surrender could only have been 
extorted by the strongest hope of advantage — the hope of some 
great and striking improvement in our whole country, such as this 
great work will be when you complete it, as you have promised. 

Mr. Speaker, I have shown that the three Western States have 
given into the National Treasury, in effect six inillions of dollars, for 
the promise to construct this road. Let us now advert for a moment 
to the cost of the work as estimated at the time of the contract, and 
we shall find that the Government then understood that this sum 
would construct the road from the Atlantic waters to the Mississippi ; 
nay, that in all probability there would be a surplus remaining in the 
Treasury after the road was finished. The kind of road, its location, 
and the time of its completion, were all left with this Government to 
be adjusted, under a fair interpretation of the compact. After 
proper examination, it was determined to commence at Cumberland, 
and strike the Ohio line at Wheeling, in Virginia. 

On the 3rd of March, 1808, Mr. Gallatin, then Secretary of the 
Treasury, reports to Congress that the road had been located from 
Cumberland toward Wheeling, a distance of seventy miles, and adds 
the expense of completing that part of the road is estimated at 
$400,000. This estimate shows that the average estimated cost of 
the road, over by far the most expensive part of it, was a trifle less 
than six thousand dollars per mile. The whole length of the road, 
from Cumberland to the Mississippi, as surveyed, is six hundred and 
fifty miles ; it may be a mile or two more or less. Now, take the 
-estimated cost per mile, as reported by Mr. Gallatin, which was for 
the mountain region entirely, and remember that one half less, it 
was supposed, would suffice to make the road across the level plains 
of the West, and we shall see at once how reasonable it is that the 
Congress of that day, after receiving what was equivalent to six 
millions of dollars, should make an unconditional promise to con- 
struct the road to the Mississippi river. 

The contract, as then understood from the estimate, was simply 
as follows: 

Value of the tax released in favor of the Federal Government 

by the three Western States, $ 6,000,000 

Cost of the road 650 miles, at $6,000 per mile, according to 

Mr. Gallatin's estimate for the first 70 miles, . . 3,900,000 

% 2,100,000 



ON THE CUMBERLAND ROAD. 237 

Leaving two millions in the Treasury, after making the road as then 
estimated. Upon this view, founded on facts and representations of 
public men, cotemporaneous with this compact, it is clearly shown 
that the States paid the Federal Government what the parties then 
believed a full consideration for completing the road the entire dis- 
tance proposed. From this, what follows? Why, surely, that the 
Government promised to do what in conscience it ought, that is, to 
do the act which they were paid for doing — to make the road com- 
plete according to the contract. 

But here, Mr. Speaker, I am told that whatever may have been 
the reasonable expectations of the parties, as to the completion of 
this work, when the contract was made, the Government only bound 
itself to appropriate two per cent, of the net proceeds of the public 
lands, and that this has been done, and no moneys remain of this 
fund applicable to the purposes of the contract. To this I reply, 
that such is not the contract, and I think I have shown this from the 
proofs already adduced. I grant you that two per cent, of the net 
proceeds of the public lands are pledged for the performance of 
your promise to make the road ; but this pledge does in no sense 
limit the contract for which it is only a mere security. Let it be 
remembered that, when this contract was made, the public lands 
were pledged for the payment of a large national debt. To increase 
the value of these lands was one motive to make the road, and the 
States aided you in this, paid you for it, by relinquishing the taxes 
on them for five years after sale ; it was, therefore, only fair, as the 
Government was deeply in debt, that the States should have some 
security for the performance of your contract. This security was 
given by pledging the two per cent, named in the contract. But it 
was not the contract, it was only a security given to the States for 
its faithful performance. This interpretation is fortified by other 
stipulations in the contract. The time, manner and location of the 
road are all left to the General Government. Why was this? 
Because you had bound yourselves, in general terms, to make a 
road. And it was, therefore, only reasonable that you should have 
control over a work which you bound yourselves to finish. Had you 
bound yourselves only to pay, for the purposes of the work, a spec- 
ified sum, such as the two per cent, mentioned, is it possible to sup- 
pose the States would have left you to appropriate their money, for 
which they paid you, \n your own way, and according to your own 
discretion? Such a contract, on the part of the States, would have 



238 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

been absolute insanity. It involves an absurdity too gross for 
serious consideration. This itself shows that the two per cent, fund 
was only a pledge, a security, and not, as some have supposed, the 
contract itself. Thus you have always construed the contract. 
According to your own admission, you have gone on to make the 
road without regard to the two per cent. fund. You say vastly more 
than this has been expended. Why did you do this, if only two 
per cent, on the sales of lands were to be given to the road? No 
rational answer can be given to this question, but one. The two per 
cent, did not limit the contract, it only seciwed its performance ; and 
this has been yow'- ozvn uniform construction of it, as evinced by all 
your conduct up to this day, throughout a lapse of more than thirty 
years. 

Let me suppose, Mr. Speaker, that the two per cent, fund was 
all you promised, which, however, I by no means admit. You say 
it was to be expended by you ; you are the trustee of the fund, and 
the agent for its appropriation. Be it so, then, for the sake of the 
argument. What was this fund committed to your charge? Two 
per cent, upon the sales of one hundred and twenty millions of acres 
of land. This you were bound to sell for $2 per acre, for this was the 
price fixed by law at the time of the contract. This would produce 
$240,000,000. Two per cent, upon this would be $4,800,000. 
You had estimated the road to cost $3,900,000. Thus you see that, 
by every calculation based upon the state of things as existing at 
the date of the contract, the States and yourselves had a right to 
suppose that, happen what might, if you acted up to your engage- 
ments, the road would be made. But $2 per acre was then the min- 
imum price of the land, and we, being interested in the fund, had, 
and now have, a right to demand of you that you, as trustee, shall get 
as much more as possible, by selling all the land at auction in the 
way fixed by law as it then stood. Now let us see how you have com-, 
plied with the law and reason of this contract in the management of 
this fund given in trust for its execution. In the first place you 
sank the value of the fund nearly one-half by reducing the price of 
the land from $2 to $1.25 per acre. In the second place, you have 
given away immense amounts of this fund in bounty lands to sol- 
diers, which you can never sell, and for which you can render no 
account. Thirdly, you have given to individuals, for purposes 
unconnected with this contract, a very large amount which never has 
or can be accounted for upon the principles of your solemn engage- 



ON THE CUMBERLAND ROAD. 239 

ments with us. Fourthly, you have given very large amounts to the 
States to make canals, exacting from them as an equivalent the right 
to carry your mails, arms, armies and munitions of war on them free 
of tolls forever. Fifthly, you have given away many millions of 
acres in preemption claims, at the minimum price, without any 
attempt to sell, and account (as you were bound to do) for the pro- 
ceeds. Thus you, our agent to manage a fund destined to make our 
road, have so wasted it, and used it for your own purposes, that you 
never can tell whether it would have produced the expected amount 
or not. What is the consequence in law, in reason, in justice? 
What follows? Why, sir, any justice of the peace can tell you. 
You, the agent, must answer for this by replacing, out of your own 
funds, what you have wrongfully taken from us. But as you have 
so disposed of the trust fund that you never can tell what, if sold at 
auction, it would have produced, and so cannot, by any certain rule, 
therefore, ascertain the amount you have taken wrongfully from us, 
you must suffer the inconvenience ; you must take from your own 
funds, and do what, when you contracted with us, you affirmed this 
wasted fund would do, that is, complete the road in question from 
Cumberland to the banks of the Mississippi river. 

Is not this equitable, fair, honorable, just? Why then stick in 
the bark? as the lawyers say. Why these pettifogging quibbles, 
these dilatory pleas ? Does such conduct become a great nation ? 
Sir, it has been said that honor is the vital principle of monarchy. 
You say you represent sovereigns — the sovereign people. Act then 
as becomes the dignity of your royal constituents. Leave no room 
to doubt your probity. Observe fully and entirely the faith of your 
promise whenever made. No such thing, says the gentleman from 
South Carolina, [Mr. Clowney] this morning. If you have made a 
contract, no matter, you had no constitutional power to do so, there- 
fore cease your efforts to fulfill your engagements. And there the 
gentleman would stop ; he goes no further. What a beautiful exam- 
ple of political morality would you then exhibit ! Some years ago 
you entered into a contract, a treaty, with three sovereign States. 
You have received from them all they agreed to give you. You 
have their money in your pockets. Now you turn to these States, 
with all seeming honesty, and say, true, I promised, but I had no 
right to promise, my conscience is affected, I have sinned, I repent, I 
will do so no more, but I will keep your money. I cannot violate 
my conscience by doing as I agreed. Oh, no, that is too wicked ; I 



240 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

pray you do not ask it ; but still I shall keep the money you paid me. 
Yesterday my friend from Kentucky [Mr. Calhoun], with a power 
of argument and generosity of sentiment equally honorable to his 
head and heart, spoke in favor of this bill ; he adverted to certain 
objections made by his colleagues [Messrs. Graves and Underwood]. 
They had opposed the bill as partial in its operation, as giving to the 
three States through which the road passes a disbursement of money 
which Kentucky was not permitted to enjoy. He said the disburse- 
ments in Indiana would flow into Louisville, in Kentucky, where 
goods and even liquors would be bought, with which the labor on 
the road would be paid. Upon this another gentleman from South 
Carolina [Mr. Pickens] takes fire. "This," said he, "shows the 
demoralizing tendency of the system ! This is the motive to vote 
appropriations, that money be raised to buy whisky for the poor 
laborer to drink!" Sir, I have no objection to the gentleman's moral 
lectures, but do not see the necessity of throwing his moral sensibili- 
ties into convulsions at the sight of a glass of punch, while he can 
look with a sanctimonious composure at broken promises and vio- 
lated national faith. 

Mr. Speaker, I have one word to say, before I sit down, to the 
gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Underwood]. He spoke the other 
day in opposition to this bill. He did not deny that the Cumber- 
land road might be useful ; but, as he could obtain no money here to 
enable his people to build dams and make slack-water navigation on 
Green river, he would not help us to make a road on the northern 
side of the Ohio. And then the gentleman proceeded in a grave 
disquisition upon our constitutional powers to make roads and im- 
prove rivers. What says the Constitution? "Congress shall have 
power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, among the several 
States, and with the Indian tribes?" What is the gentleman's com- 
mentary? "You have," says he, "a clear and undoubted right to 
improve rivers, but not so of roads." And why, Mr. Speaker, 
why? Do you, sir, remember the reason for this distinction? It 
was this: "Providence," says the gentleman, "has marked out riv- 
ers as the proper channels and avenues of commerce." What a 
beautiful and exalted piety is here shedding its clear light upon the 
dark mysteries of constitutional law ! And then how logical the con- 
clusion ! Thus runs the argument: "Since it is not the will of God 
that commerce should be carried on on dry land, but only on the 
water, the powers over commerce, given in the Constitution by our 



ON THE CUMBERLAND ROAD. 241 

pious ancestors, must be understood as limited by the Divine com- 
mands; and therefore," says he, "you have power to remove sand- 
bars and islands, and blow up rocks out of rivers and creeks, to 
make a channel which Providence has begun and left unfinished ; but 
beware," he would say, "how you cut down a tree, or remove a 
rock, on the dry land, to complete what Providence has begun there. 
You have no power by law to do this last ; beside, it is impious, it is 
not the will of God." 

Mr. Speaker, I know of no parallel to this charming philosphy, 
unless it be found in the sayings of Mause Hedrigg, an elderly Scotch 
lady, who figures in one of Sir Walter Scott's novels. In one of 
her evangelical moods, she rebuked her son Cuddie for using a fan, 
or any work of art, to clean his barley. She said it was an awsome 
denial o' Providence not to wait his own time, when he would surely 
send wind to winnow the chaff out of the grain. In the same spirit 
of enlightened philosophy does the gentleman exhort us in Ohio, 
Indiana and Illinois to cease our impious road-making, and wait the 
good time of Providence, who will, as he seems to think, surely send 
a river to run from Cumberland over the Alleghanies, across the 
Ohio, and so on, in its heaven-directed course, to St. Louis. Mr, 
Speaker, the gentleman from Kentucky is not the author of this 
theory. Our Atlantic brethren, especially of the South, have long 
held the same doctrine. They have long since discovered that our 
glorious Constitution was nothing more at last than a fish ! made for 
the water, and which can only live in the water. According to their 
views, he is a goodly fish, of marvelous proper uses and functions 
while you keep him in the water ; but the moment he touches dry 
land, lo ! he suffocates and dies. The only difference between this 
school of constitutional lawyers and the gentleman from Kentucky is 
this : he believes your Constitution is a fish that thrives in all luatcrs, 
and especially in Green river slack-water; whereas, his brethren of 
the South insist that he can only live in salt water. With them the 
doctrine is, wherever the tide ceases to flow he dies. He can live 
and thrive in a little tide creek, which a thirsty mosquito would drink 
dry in a hot day ; but place him on or under the majestic wave of 
the Mississippi, and in an instant he expires. Mr. Speaker, who 
can limit the range of science? What hand can stay the march of 
mind? Heretofore we have studied the science of law to help us in 
our understanding of the Constitution. Some have brought meta- 
physical learning to this aid. But now, in the middle of the nine- 
17 



242 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

teenth century, these labors are all ended. Ichthyology, sir, is the 
key to open all the doors that have hitherto barred our approaches 
to truth. According to this new school of philosophy, if you just 
teach coming generations the "nature of fish," those great problems 
in constitutional law that vexed and worried the giant intellects of 
Hamilton, Madison and Marshall, are at once revealed and made plain 
to the dullest peasant in the land. Sir, if I appear to trifle with 
this grave subject, the fault is not mine ; it arises from the singular 
nature and contrarient character of those arguments which I am most 
unwillingly compelled to combat. 

The gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Underwood] has inquired, 
with a very significant look, what has become of the three per cent 
fund, given to the States for improvements within their respective 
limits. He says he has inquired of the Secretary of the Treasury, 
and he can give him no account of the disposition the Western 
States may have made of this fund, and hence the gentleman seemed 
to infer that no one could tell him anything satisfactory on the sub- 
ject. Sir, if your Secretary of the Treasury is the only source of 
information, then are the fountains of knowledge scanty indeed, and 
nearly dried up with us. If everything is imknozvji which he does 
not hioiv, if we can see nothing which has not been revealed to him, 
why, then, the Lord help us; the lights of the age burn dimly 
enough, and must be well-nigh extinct. Sir, if the gentleman, 
instead of consulting the "Penny Magazine" of the Treasury, had 
gone to the libraries of this city, and looked into the statistics of 
these States, he would have found that this fund had been faithfully, 
to the last dollar, expended in making roads "to and through" the 
public lands in the States ; thus increasing the value and hastening 
the sale of your national property. The gentleman reproaches the 
three States on the right bank of the Ohio for having obtained from 
the national domain large grants for making roads and canals. Does 
not the gentleman know that in every instance you have received an 
equivalent for these lands, by obtaining from the States or companies 
the right to carry your mails, arms, troops and munitions of war, 
over such roads or canals, at all times free of charge? If you 
gave the alternate sections of land for a road or canal, you held up 
the remaining section at double your , minimum price, and have 
always realized it, and thus made money for yourselves out of the 
capital and labor of the States, while you boast the transaction as a 
benevolence to others. 



ON THE CUMBERLAND ROAD. 243 

But, sir, Kentucky should be the last State in the Union to 
raise an argument of this kind against her sisters of the West. 
How came she by the whole of that very Green river country which 
now comprises one-fourth of that State ? Virginia had reserved that 
territory to satisfy her Revolutionary debt to her troops. When she 
ceded the Northwestern territory to the United States, she reserved 
the land between the Little Miami and Scioto rivers ( now in Ohio ) 
as a residuary fund for the satisfaction of her Revolutionary land 
warrants; if the lands reserved for that purpose in Kentucky should 
prove insufficient. Well, sir, what happened? Soon after this, 
Kentucky seized upon the whole Green river country, and refused to 
the war-worn veteran of the Revolution the right to locate his war- 
rants there. The consequence was, the whole country reserved in 
Ohio was exhausted, and the Virginia claims, to the amount of 
many millions, have been lately paid of the Treasury of the Union 
in the shape of land scrip. Sir, I have said this domain, thus seized 
by Kentucky, was equal to one-fourth part of the State. Now, sup- 
pose you had given to Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, what Kentucky 
received — one-fourth part of all the lands within their respective 
limits — sir, it would have constructed this road through their terri- 
tories ten times over. And yet, with these facts all before him, the 
gentleman sits weeping over the dams and slack-water of Green river 
like a froward child, spoiled by too much indulgence, complaining of 
its mother's partiality to the really much less favored members of 
our common family. Sir, this is unlike Kentucky; it is unlike the 
uniform justice and generosity of both the gentlemen [Messrs. 
Graves and Underwood], who have so vehemently opposed this bill. 
I beseech them to desist. Cease to drive this Jew's bargain with 
your sister States. Relax the miser's grip you have laid upon your 
neighbor's rights. Throw away the knife of Shylock, clothe your- 
selves in the robes of justice and generosity. Stand out in your 
true characters, and in the proper costume of your noble State. 
Look upon this bill with the eye of the American statesman. The 
interests of the whole valley we inhabit in common are the same. 
You cannot separate them by lines or rivers. Sir, the same cloud 
that dispenses its fertilizing showers upon Kentucky, drops fatness 
upon the States of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The same sun that 
warms vegetation into early and vigorous life on the rich plantations 
of Kentucky, also mellows the fruit and ripens the harvests that 
cover the vast plains outstretched upon the right bank of the Ohio. 



244 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

The God of Nature has decreed us a common lot, and it is vain and 
impious to interpose our feeble opposition to His will. 

Mr. Speaker, some gentlemen have complained that one section 
of land out of every thirty-six has been given to the Western States 
for the use of common schools. Do gentlemen recollect to whom 
this benefit results ? Who are they that inhabit the great valleys of 
the West? Emigrants surely from the old States of the South and 
East. The children to be educated there are your children. Sir, we 
heard (some at least) an English gentleman [Mr. Buckingham], in 
one of his interesting lectures lately delivered in this city, say, when 
speaking of British emigration to America, that he was sorry they 
had not sent to this country better specimens of their population. 
Sir, I can say to my friends on this side of the mountains, with equal 
sincerity, as to some of those you sent out, " I am sorry you did not 
send us better specimens." But the truth is, we get in the West the 
very best and the very worst of your population. The poor come 
there for bread, and the enterprising and industrious come to find a 
field which gives ample scope to their energies and rewards to their 
labor. This fund, then, is for the education of the poor, and the rich, 
too, if any such there be, which you send in masses every year to the 
West. And I can assure gentlemen it has been faithfully applied in 
Ohio. It has been added to by heavy taxation upon our people. 
Some gentlemen (I speak it in no spirit of pride or vain boasting), 
some gentlemen from the old States might learn something new to 
them in the history of civilization, would they but visit that Western 
world, of which they often seem to me to know very little. They 
might see there, in the very spot where but yesterday the wild beasts 
of the wilderness seized their prey by night, and made their covert 
lair by day, on that same spot to-day stands the common school- 
house, filled alike with the children of the rich and poor — those chil- 
dren who are to be the future voters, officers and statesmen of the 
Republic. Over that vast region, so lately red with the blood of 
savage war, the seed-fields of knowledge are planted, and a smiling 
harvest of civilization springs up. And there, too, may be seen 
what a Christian statesman might well admire. The school-master is 
not alone. That holy religion, which is at last the only sure basis of 
permanent social or political improvement, has there its voices crying 
in the wilderness. Upon the almost burning embers of the war-fire, 
round which some barbarous chief but yesterday recounted to his 
listening tribe, with horrid exultation, his deeds of savage heroism, 



ON THE CUMBERLAND ROAD. 245 

to-day is built a temple dedicated to that religion which announces 
"peace on earth and good will toward men." Yes, sir, all over that 
land, side by side with the humble school-house, stand those 

" Steeple-towers, 
And spires whose silent finger points to Heaven." 

Is it, sir, can it be in the heart of an American statesman, to 
check in its progress, or crush in its infancy, a social and political 
system which has tendencies and fruits like this? But, sir, I find 
myself tempted, by themes so full of hope, to wander, as some may 
think, into subjects having a bearing upon the immediate question, 
too remote to justify their discussion here. I beg to remind this 
House that the bill now before it is a part, small, indeed, but still a 
part of a system of policy which long ago you established for the 
Western country, which hitherto you have cherished, and which, 
aided by the patient, persevering labor of your people there, has 
produced the happy results which I have so hastily and imperfectly 
laid before you. I feel an assured confidence that I do not plead in 
vain to an American Congress in such a cause. Still, should I unhap- 
pily be mistaken in this, conscious of the rectitude of my own 
motives, I shall cheerfully submit to whatever decision it shall please 
the House to make. 



REPLY TO GENERAL CRARY. 



On the 14th of February, 1840, the Hon. Isaac E. Crary, of Michigan, having 
in the course of his remarks in Committee of the Whole — on referring the memorial of 
the National Road Convention, held at Terre Haute, Indiana, to the Committee of 
Ways and Means, animadverted upon the Military conduct of Gen. Harrison, Mr. Cor- 
wiN, on the next day, addressed the House as follows : 

Mr. Speaker: 

I am admonished, by the eager solicitations of gentlemen 
around me to give way for a motion to adjourn, of that practice of 
the House which accords us more of leisure on this day than is al- 
lowed us on any other day of the week. The servants of other good 
masters are, I believe, indulged in a sort of saturnalium in the after- 
noon on Saturday ; and we have supposed that our kind masters, the 
people, might be willing to grant us, their most faithful slaves, a sim- 
ilar respite from toil. It is now past three o'clock in the afternoon, 
and I should be very willing to pause in discussion, were I not urged 
by those menacing cries of "Go on," from various parts of the 
House. In this state of things, I cannot hope to summon to any- 
thing like attention the unquiet minds of many, or the jaded and 
worn-down faculties of a still larger portion of the House. I hope, 
however, the House will not withhold from me a boon which I have 
often seen granted to others, that is, the privilege of speaking with- 
out being oppressed by a crowded audience, which is accompanied 
by this additional advantage, that the orator, thus situated, can at 
least listen to and hear himself 

If you, Mr. Speaker, and the members of this House, have 
given that attention to the speech of the gentleman from Michigan 
[Mr. Crary], made yesterday, which some of us here thought it our 
duty to bestow, I am sure the novelty of the scene, to say nothing 
more of it, must have arrested your curiosity, if, indeed, it did not 
give rise to profound reflection. 

I need not remind the House that it is a rule here (as I suppose 

(246) 



REPLY TO GENERAL CRARY. 247 

it is everywhere else where men dispute by any rule at all) that what 
is said in debate should be relevant and pertinent to the subject 
under discussion. The question before us is a proposition to instruct 
the Committee of Ways and Means to report a bill granting four 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars to continue the construction of 
the Cumberland road in the States of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. 
The objections to the measure are, either that this Government is in 
no sense bound by compact to make the road, or that it is not a 
work of any national concern, but merely of local interest, or that 
the present exhausted stat^ of the Treasury will not warrant the 
appropriation, admitting the object of it to be fairly within the con- 
stitutional province of Congress. 

If the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Pickens], and the 
gentleman from Maine [Mr. Parris], who consider the Cumberland 
road a work of mere sectional advantage to a very small portion of 
the people, have attended to the sage disquisitions of the gentleman 
from Michigan on the art of war, they must now either come to the 
conclusion that almost the whole of the gentleman's speech is what 
old-fashioned people would call a "no?i scqiiitur;' or else that this 
road connects itself with not merely the military defenses of the 
Union, but is interwoven most intimately with the progress of sci- 
ence, and especially that most difficult of all sciences, the proper 
application of strategy to the exigencies of barbarian warfare. It 
will be seen that the far-seeing sagacity and long-reaching understand- 
mg of the gentleman from Michigan has discovered that, before we 
can vote with a clear conscience on the instructions proposed, we 
must be well informed as to the number of Indians who fought at 
the battle of Tippecanoe in 1811 ; how these savages were painted, 
whether red, black or blue, or whether all were blended on their bar- 
barian faces. Further, according to his views of the subject, before 
we vote money to make a road, we must know and approve of what 
General Harrison thought, said and did at the battle of Tippecanoe. 
Again, upon this process of reasoning, we must inquire where 
a general should be when a battle begins, especially in the night, 
and what his position during the fight, and where he should be found 
when it is over; and particularly how a Kentuckian behaves himself 
when he hears an Indian warwhoop in day or night. And, after set- 
tling all these puzzling propositions, still we must fully understand 
how and by whom the battle of the Thames was fought, and in what 
manner it then and there became our troops, regular and militia, to 



248 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIX. 

conduct themselves. Sir, it must be obvious that if these topics are 
germain to the subject, then does the Cumberland road encompass 
all the interests and all the subjects that touch the rights, duties and 
destinies of the civilized world ; and I hope we shall hear no more 
from Southern gentlemen of the narrow, sectional or unconstitutional 
character of the proposed measure. That branch of the subject is, 
I hope, forever quieted, perhaps unintentionally, by the gentleman 
from Michigan. His military criticism, if it has not answered the 
purposes intended, has at least, in this way, done some service to 
the Cumberland road. And if my poor halting comprehension has 
not blundered in pursuing the soaring upward flight of my friend 
from Michigan, he has in this discussion written a new chapter in the 
^WegidcB philosophandi," and made not ourselves only, but the whole 
world his debtors in gratitude, by overturning the old worn-out prin- 
ciples of the "inductive system." 

Mr. Speaker, there have been many and ponderous volumes 
written, and various unctuous discourses delivered, on the doctrines 
of "association." Dugald Stewart, a Scotch gentlemen of no 
mean pretensions in his day, thought much and wrote much con- 
cerning that principle in mental philosophy ; and Brown, another of 
the same school, but of later date, has also written and said much 
on the subject. This latter gentleman, I think, calls it "sugges- 
tion;" but never, I venture to say, did any metaphysician, pushing 
his researches furthest and deepest into that occult science, dream 
that would come to pass which we have discovered and clearly devel- 
oped — that is, that two subjects so unlike as an appropriation to a 
road in 1840, and the tactics proper in Indian war in 1811, were not 
merely akin, but actually, identically, the same. 

Mr. Speaker, this discussion, I should think, if not absolutely 
absurd and utterly ridiculous, which my respect for the gentleman 
from Michigan and the American Congress will not allow me to sup- 
pose, has elicted another trait in the American character which has 
been the subject of great admiration with intelligent travelers from 
the old world. Foreigners have admired the ease with which we 
Yankees, as they call us, can turn our hands to any business or pur- 
suit, public or private, and this has been brought forward by our 
own people as a proof that man, in this great and free republic, 
is a being very far superior to the same animal in other parts of the 
globe less favored than ours. A proof of the most convincing char- 
acter of this truth, so flattering to our national pride, is exhibited 



REPLY TO GENERAL CRARY. 249 

before our eyes in the gentleman from IMichigan delivering to the 
world a grave lecture on the campaigns of General Harrison, includ- 
ing a variety of very interesting military events in the years 1811, 
1812 and 1813. In all other countries, and in all former times, 
before now, a gentleman who would either speak or be listened to, 
on the subject of war, involving subtile criticisms on strategy, and 
careful reviews of marches, sieges, battles, regular and casual, and 
irregular onslaughts, would be required to show, first, that he had 
studied much, investigated fully, and digested well, the science and 
history of his subject. But here, sir, no such painful preparation is 
required; witness the gentleman from Michigan. He has announced 
to the House that he is a militia general on the peace establishment ! 
That he is a lawyer we know, tolerable well read in Tidd's Practice 
and Espinasse's Nisi Prius. These studies, so happily adapted to the 
subject of war, with an appointment in the militia in time of peace, 
furnish him at once with all the knowledge necessary to discourse to 
us, as from high authority, upon all the mysteries in the "trade of 
death." Again, Mr. Speaker, it must occur to every one that we, 
to whom these questions are submitted and these criticisms are 
addressed, being all colonels at least, and most of us like the gentle- 
man himself, brigadiers, are, of all conceivable tribunals, best quali- 
fied to decide any nice point connected with military science. I 
hope the House will not be alarmed by an impression that I am 
about to discuss one or the other of the millitary questions now 
before us at length, but I wish to submit a remark or two, by way of 
preparing us for a proper appreciation of the merits of the dis- 
course we have heard. I trust, as we are all brother oflficers, that 
the gentleman from Michigan and the two hundred and forty 
colonels or generals of this honorable House, will receive what I 
have to say, as coming from an old brother in arms, and addressed 
to them in a spirit of candor, 

" Such as becomes comrades free. 
Reposing after victory." 

Sir, we all know the military studies of the gentleman from 
Michigan before he was promoted. I take it to be beyond a reason- 
able doubt that he had perused with great care the title-page of 
"Baron Steuben." Nay, I go further; as the gentleman has inciden- 
tally assured us he is prone to look into musty and neglected vol- 
umes, I venture to assert, without vouching the fact from personal 
knowledge, that he has prosecuted his researches so far, as to be able 



250 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

to know that the rear rank stands right behind the front. This, I 
think, is fairly inferable from what I understand him to say of the 
two lines of encampment at Tippecanoe. Thus, we see, Mr. 
Speaker, that the gentleman from Michigan, so far as study can give 
us knowledge of a subject, comes before us with claims to great pro- 
fundity. But this is a subject which, of all others, requires the aid 
of actual experience to make us wise. Now the gentleman from 
Michigan, being a militia general, as he has told us, his brother offi- 
cers, in that simple statement has revealed the glorious history of 
toils, privations, sacrifices and bloody scenes, through which we 
know, from experience and observation, a militia officer in time of 
peace is sure to pass. We all, in fancy, now see the gentleman from 
Michigan in that most dangerous and glorious event in the life of a 
militia general on the peace establishment — a parade-day ! The day 
for which all the other days of his life seem to have been made. 
We can see the troops in motion ; umbrellas, hoe and ax-handles and 
other like deadly implements of war overshadowing all the field, 
when lo ! the leader of the host approaches, 

" Far off his coming shines ;" 

his plume, white, after the fashion of the great Bourbon, is of ample 
length, and reads its doleful history in the bereaved necks and bos- 
oms of forty neighboring hen-roosts ! Like the great Suwaroff, he 
seems somewhat careless in forms and points of dress, hence his 
epaulettes may be on his shoulders, back or sides, but still gleaming, 
gloriously gleaming in the sun. Mounted he is, too, let it not be for- 
gotten. Need I describe to the colonels and generals of this honor- 
able House the steed which heroes bestride on such occasions ? No, 
I see the memory of other days is with you. You see before you 
the gentleman from Michigan mounted on his crop-eared, bushy- 
tailed mare, the singular obliquities of whose hinder limbs is de- 
scribed by that most expressive phrase, "sickle hams" — her height 
just fourteen hands, "all told;" yes, sir, there you see his "steed 
that laughs at the shaking of the spear;" that is, his "war-horse 
whose neck is clothed with thunder." Mr. Speaker, we have glow- 
ing descriptions in history of Alexander the Great and his war-horse, 
Bucephalus, at the head of the invincible Macedonian phalanx, but, 
sir, such are the improvements of modern times, that every one 
must see that our militia general, with his crop-eared mare, with 
bushy tail and sickle ham, would literally frighten off a battle-field 
a hundred Alexanders. But, sir, to the history of the parade-day. 



REPLY TO GENERAL CRARY. 251 

The general, thus mounted and equipped, is in the field and ready 
for action. On the eve of some desperate enterprise, such as giving 
order to shoulder arms, it may be, there occurs a crisis, one of the 
accidents of war which no sagacity could foresee or prevent. A 
cloud rises and passes over the sun ! Here an occasion occurs for 
the display of that greatest of all traits in the character of a com- 
mander, that tact which enables him to seize upon and turn to good 
account events unlooked for as they arise. Now for the caution 
wherewith the Roman Fabius foiled the skill and courage of Hanni- 
bal. A retreat is ordered, and troops and general, in a twinkling, 
are found safely bivouacked in a neighboring grocery! But even 
here the general still has room for the exhibition of heroic deeds. 
Hot from the field, and chafed with the untoward events of the day, 
your general unsheaths his trenchant blade, eighteen inches in length, 
as you will well remember, and with an energy and remorseless fury 
he slices the water-melons that lie in heaps around him, and shares 
them with his surviving friends. Other of the sinews of war are not 
wanting here. Whisky, Mr. Speaker, that great leveler of modern 
times, is here also, and the shells of the water-melons are filled to 
the brim. Here again, Mr. Speaker, is shown how the extremes of 
barbarism and civilization meet. As the Scandinavian heroes of old, 
after the fatigues of war, drank wine from the skulls of their slaugh- 
tered enemies in Odin's Halls, so now our militia general and his 
forces, from the skulls of melons thus vanquished, in copious 
draughts of whisky, assuage the heroic fire of their souls, after 
the bloody scenes of a parade-day. But, alas for this short-lived 
race of ours, all things will have an end, and so even is it with the 
glorious achievements of our general. Time is on the wing, and 
will not stay his flight; the sun, as if frightened at the mighty 
events of the day, rides down the sky, and at the close of the day 
when "the hamlet is still," the curtain of night drops upon the 
scene ; 

" And glory, like the phoenix in its fires, 
Exhales its odors, blazes and expires." 

Such, sir, has been the experience in war of the gentleman 
from Michigan. We know this from the simple annunciation that he 
is and has been a brigadier of militia in time of peace; and now, 
having a full understanding of the qualifications of our learned gen- 
eral, both from study and practice, I hope the House will see that it 
should give its profound reflection to his discourses on the art of 



252 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

war. And this it will be more inclined to, when we take into view 
that the gentleman has, in his review of General Harrison's cam- 
paigns, modestly imputed to the latter great mistakes, gross blun- 
ders, imbecility, and even worse than this, as I shall show hereafter. 
The force, too, of the lecture of our learned and experienced friend 
from Michigan is certainly greatly enhanced, when we consider 
another admitted fact, which is, that the general whose imbecility 
and errors he has discovered, has not, like the gentleman from Mich- 
igan, the great advantage of serving in water-melon campaigns, but 
only fought fierce Indians in the dark forests of the West, under 
such stupid fellows as Anthony Wayne, and was afterward appointed 
to the command of large armies by the advice of such an inexperi- 
enced boy as Gov. Shelby, the hero of King's Mountain. 

And now, Mr. Speaker, as I have the temerity to entertain 
doubts, and with great deference to differ in my opinions on this mil- 
itary question with the gentleman from Michigan, I desire to state a 
few historical facts concerning General Harrison, whom the general 
from Michigan has pronounced incapable, imbecile, and, as I shall 
notice hereafter, something worse even than these. General Harri- 
son was commissioned by General Washington an officer in the regu- 
lar army of the United States in the year 1791. He served as aid 
to General Anthony Wayne in the campaign against the Indians, 
which resulted in the battle of the Rapids of the Maumee, in the fall 
of 1794. Thus, in his youth, he was selected by General Wayne as 
one of his military family. And what did this youthful officer do in 
that memorable battle of the Rapids? Here, Mr. Speaker, let me 
summon a witness, merely to show how military men may differ. 
The witness I call to controvert the opinion of the gentleman from 
Michigan is General Anthony Wayne. In his letter to the Secretary 
of War, giving an account of the battle of the Rapids, he says: 

"My faithful and gallant Lieutenant Harrison rendered the most 
essential services, by communicating my orders in every direction, 
and by his conduct and bravery exciting the troops to press for 
victory." 

Sir, this evidence was given by General Wayne in the year 
1794, some time, I imagine, before the gentleman from Michigan 
was born, and long before he became a militia general, and long, 
very long, before he ever perused the title-page of Baron Steuben. 
Mr. Speaker, let me remind the House, in passing, that this battle 
and victory over the Indian forces of the Northwest, in which, 



REPLY TO GENERAL CRARY. 25S 

according to the testimony of General Wayne, "Lieutenant Harri- 
son rendered the most essential services by his conduct and bravery," 
gave peace to an exposed line of frontier, extending from Pittsburg 
to the southern borders of Tennessee. It was, in truth, the close of 
the war of the Revolution, for the Indians who took part with Great 
Britain in our Revolutionary struggle never laid down their arms 
until after they were vanquished by Wayne in 1794. 

We now come to see something of the man, the general, whose 
military history our able and experienced general from Michigan has 
reviewed. We know that debates like this have sometimes been had 
in the British Parliament. There, I believe, the discussion was 
usually conducted by those in the House, who have seen, and not 
merely heard of service. We all know that Colonel Napier has, in 
several volumes, reviewed the campaigns of Wellington, and criti- 
cised the movements and merits of Beresford, and Soult, and 
Massena, and many others, quite, yes, I say quite as well known in 
military history as any of us, not even excepting our general from 
Michigan. We respect the opinions of Napier, because we know he 
not only tJiougJit of war, but that he fougJit, too. We respect and 
admire that combination of military skill, with profound statesman- 
like views, which we find in "Cesar's Commentaries," because we 
know the "mighty Julius" was a soldier, trained in the field, and 
inured to the accidents and dangers of war. But, sir, we generals of 
Congress require no such painful discipline to give value to our opin- 
ions. We men of the nineteenth century know all things intuitively. 
We understand perfectly the military art by nature. Yes, sir, the 
notions of the gentleman from Michigan agree exactly with a sage 
by the name of "Dogberry," who insisted that "reading and writ- 
ing come by nature." Mr. Speaker, we have heard and read much 
of the "advance of knowledge, the improvement of the species, 
and the great march of mind," but never till now have we understood 
the extent of meaning in these pregnant phrases. For instance, the 
gentleman from Michigan asserts that General Harrison has none of 
the qualities of a general because, at the battle of Tippecanoe, he 
was found at one time at a distance from his tent, urging his men on 
to battle. He exposed his person too much, it seems. He should 
have staid at his tent, and waited for the officers to come to him for 
orders. Well, sir, see now to what conclusion this leads us. Napo- 
leon seized a standard at Lodi and rushed in front of his columns 
across a narrow bridge, which was swept by a whole park of Ger- 



254 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

man artillery. Hence, Napoleon was no officer; he did not know 
how to command an army. He, like Harrison, exposed his person 
too much. Oh, Mr. Speaker, what a pity for poor Napoleon that he 
had not studied Steuben, and slaughtered water-melons with us nat- 
ural-born generals of this great age of the world ! Sir, it might have 
altered the map of Europe ; nay, changed the destinies of the world ! 

Again : Alexander the Great spurred his horse foremost into 
the river, and led his Macedonians across the Granicus to rout the 
Persians who stood full opposed on the other side of the stream. 
True, this youth conquered the world and made himself master of 
what had constituted the Medean, Persian, Assyrian and Chaldean 
empires. Still, according to the judgment of us warriors by nature, 
the mighty Macedonian would have consulted good sense by coming 
over here, if, indeed, there were any here hereabouts in those days, 
and studying, like my friend from Michigan, first Tidd's Practice and 
Espinasse's Nisi Prius and a little snatch of Steuben, and serving as 
a general of militia awhile. Sir, Alexander the Great might have 
made a man of himself in the art of war, had he even been a mem- 
ber of our Congress, and heard us colonels discuss the subject of an 
afternoon or two. Indeed, Alexander, or Satan, I doubt not, would 
have improved greatly in strategy by observing, during this session, . 
the tactics of the Administration party on the New Jersey election 
question. Mr. Speaker, this objection to a general, because he will 
fight, is not original with my friend from Michigan. I remember a 
great authority, in point, agreeing with the gentleman in this. In 
the times of the Henrys, 4th and 5th, of England, there lived one 
Captain Jack Falstaff. If Shakespeare may be trusted, his opinions 
of the art military were exactly those of the gentleman from Michi- 
gan. He uniformly declared as his deliberate judgment on the sub- 
ject, that "discretion was the better part of valor;" and this is an 
authority for the gentleman. But who shall decide? Thus the 
authority stands — Alexander, the mighty Greek, and Napoleon 
Bonaparte and Harrison on one side, and Captain John Falstaff and 
the General from Michigan on the other! Sir, I must leave a ques- 
tion thus sustained by authorities, both ways, to posterity. Perhaps 
the lights of another age may enable the world to decide it ; I con- 
fess my inability to say on which side the weight of authority lies. 

I hope I may obtain the pardon of the American Congress for 
adverting, in this discussion, to another matter, gravely put forward 
by the gentleman from Michigan. Without the slightest feeling of 



REPLY TO GENERAL CRARY. ♦ 255 

disrespect to that gentleman, I must be allowed to say that his opin- 
ions, (hastily, I am sure,) obtruded on the House on this military 
question, can only be considered as subjects of merriment. 

But I come to notice, since I am compelled to it, one observa- 
tion of the gentleman, which I feel quite certain, on reflection, he 
will regret himself. In a sort of parenthesis in his speech, he said 
that a rumor prevailed at the time (alluding to the battle of Tippe- 
canoe) that Colonel Joseph H. Davies, of Kentucky, who com- 
manded a squadron of cavalry there, was, by some trick of General 
Harrison, mounted, during the battle, on a white horse belonging to 
the General, and that, being thus conspicuous in the fight, he was a 
mark for the assailing Indians, and fell in a charge at the head of his 
men. The gentleman says he does not vouch for the truth of this. 
Sir, it is well that he does not vouch here for the truth of a long-ex- 
ploded slander. It requires a bold man, a man possessing a great 
deal of moral courage, to make even an allusion to a charge such as 
that, against one whose only possessions in this world are his char- 
acter for courage and conduct in war in his country's defense, and 
his unstained integrity in the various civil offices it has been his duty 
to occupy. Did not the gentleman know that this vile story was 
known by every intelligent man west of the mountains to be totally 
without foundation ? The gentleman seemed to appeal to the gal- 
lant Kentuckians to prove the truth of this innuendo. He spoke of 
the blood of their countrymen so profusely poured out at Tippe- 
canoe, as if they would give countenance to the idea that the gallant 
Davies, who fell in that engagement, fell a victim to the artifice of 
the commanding general, and their other gallant sons who fell there, 
were wantonly sacrificed by the gross ignorance of General Harrison 
in Indian warfare. Now, sir, before the gentleman made his appeal, 
he should have remembered a few historical facts, which, if known 
to him, as I should suppose they were to every other man twenty 
years of age in Western America, would make the whole speech of 
that gentleman little else than a most wanton insult to the under- 
standing of the people and Government of Kentucky. Let us 
briefly notice the facts. 

In November, 1811, the battle of Tippecanoe was fought. 
There Colonel Davies and Colonel Owens, with other Kentuckians, 
fell. These, says the gentleman, (at least he insinuates it) were sac- 
rificed by either the cowardly artifice or by the ignorance of General 
Harrison. Now, Mr. Speaker, I abhor the habit of open flattery, 



256 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

nay, I do not like to look in the face of a man, and speak of him in 
warm terms of eulogium, however he may deserve it ; but, sir, on 
this occasion I am obliged to say what history will attest of the peo- 
ple of Kentucky. If any community of people ever lived, from the 
time of the dispersion on the plain of Shinar up to this day, who 
were literally cradled in war, it is to be found in the State of Ken- 
tucky. From the first exploration of the country by Daniel Boone 
up to the year 1794, they were engaged in one incessant battle with 
the savages of the West. Trace the path of an Indian incursion 
anywhere over the great valley of the West, and you will find it red 
with Kentucky blood. Wander over any of the battle-fields of that 
great theater of savage war, and you will find it white with the 
bones of her children. In childhood they fought the Indians, with 
their sisters and mothers, in their dwellings. In youth and ripe 
manhood they fought them in ambuscades and open battle-fields. 
Such were the men of Kentucky in 1811, when the battle of Tippe- 
canoe was fought. There, too, as we know, they were still found, 
foremost where life was to be lost or glory won ; and there they were 
commanded by General Harrison. Now, sir, if in that battle General 
Harrison had not conducted as became a soldier and a general, would 
not such men have seen and known it? Did Kentucky in 1811, 
mourning as she then did the loss of one of her greatest and most 
valued citizens, condemn (as the gentleman from Michigan has 
attempted to) the conduct of the General who commanded in that 
battle? Let us see how they testified. 

In January, 1812, two months after the battle of Tippecanoe, 
the Legislature of Kentucky was in session. On the 7th of January, 
1812, the following resolution passed that body: 

^^ Resolved, by iJie Senate and Hoitse of Representatives of the State 
of Kenincky, That in the late campaign against the Indians upon the 
Wabash, Governor William Henry Harrison has behaved like a hero, 
a patriot and a general ; and that for his cool, deliberate, skillful and 
gallant conduct in the battle of Tippecanoe, he well deserves the 
warmest thanks of his country and his nation." 

Mr. Speaker, the resolution I have just read was presented by 
John J. Crittenden, now a Senator from the State of Kentucky, 
whom to name is to call to the minds of all who know him, a man 
whose urbanity and varied accomplishments present a model of an 
American gentleman — whose wisdom, eloquence and integrity have 
won for him the first rank among American statesmen. Such a man, 



REPLY TO GENERAL CRARY. 257 

with both branches of the Kentucky Legislature, has testified, two 
months only after the event took place, that, in the campaign and 
battle of Tippecanoe, General Harrison combined the skill and con- 
duct of an able commander with the valor of a soldier and the patri- 
otism of an American, Who rises up, twenty-eight years afterward, 
to contradict this ? The young gentleman from Michigan ! He who, 
at the time referred to, was probably conning Webster's spelling- 
book in some village school in Connecticut. But, Mr. Speaker, I 
must call another witness upon the point in issue here. On the 12th 
of November, 1811, the Territorial Legislature of Indiana was in 
session. This is just five days after the battle. That Legislature, 
through the Speaker of its House of Representatives, General 
William Johnson, addressed General Harrison in the following terms : 

"Sir: The House of Representatives of the Indiana Territory, 
in their own name, and in behalf of their constituents, most cordially 
reciprocate the congratulations of your Excellency on the glorious 
result of the late sanguinary conflict with the Shawnee Prophet and 
all the tribes of Indians confederated with him. When we see dis- 
played in behalf of our country not only the consummate abilities of 
the general, but the heroism of the man ; and when we take into 
view the benefits which must result to that country from those exer- 
tions, we cannot for a moment withhold our meed of applause." 

Here, sir, we have two Legislatures of the States whose citizens 
composed the militia force at Tippecanoe, grieved and smarting 
under the loss of their fellow-citizens, uniting in solemn council in 
bearing their testimony to the skill and bravery displayed by General 
Harrison in that battle, which the gentleman from Michigan, with a 
self-complacency that might well pass for insanity, now says Jie has 
discovered was marked by palpable incapacity in the commanding 
General. But, Mr. Speaker, I must call yet another, nay, several 
other witnesses, to confront the opinion of the Michigan General. 

In August, 1812, about nine months after the battle of Tippe- 
canoe, news of fearful import concerning the conduct of General 
Hull reached Ohio and Kentucky. Our army had fallen back on 
Detroit, and rumors of the surrender of that place to the British, 
which did actually take place, were floating on every breeze. Three 
regiments of militia were immediately raised in Kentucky. Before 
these troops had taken the field, it was well known that our army 
under Hull, with the whole Territory of Michigan, had been surren- 
dered to the combined British and Indian forces, commanded by 
18 



258 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

Brock and Tecumseh. Our whole frontier in the Northwest lay bare 
and defenseless to the invasion not only of the British army, but the 
more terrible incursion of a savage foe, hungry for plunder and 
thirsting for blood, led on by the most bold and accomplished war- 
rior that the tribes of the red man had ever produced. In this state 
of peril the gallant army of Kentucky looked round for a leader 
equal to the imminent and momentous crisis. There was Scott, the 
then Governor of Kentucky, who had fought through the Revolu- 
tionary war, and under the eye of Washington had risen to the rank 
of brigadier in the regular service. There, too, was the veteran 
Shelby, one of the heroes of King's Mountain, a name that shall 
wake up the tones of enthusiasm in every American heart while 
heroic courage is esteemed, or lofty integrity remains a virtue. 
There, too, was Clay, whose trumpet tongue in this hall was worth a 
thousand cannon in the field. These were convened in council. 
This, let us not forget, was about nine months after the battle of 
Tippecanoe. Whom, sir, I ask, did these men select to lead their 
own friends and fellow-citizens on to this glorious enterprise ? Their 
laws required that their militia should be commanded by one of their 
own citizens ; yet passing by Scott and Shelby and thousands of their 
own brave sons, this council called General Harrison, then Governor 
of Indiana, — he who had commanded Kentuckians but nine months 
before at Tippecanoe — he who, according to the gentleman from 
Michigan, had shown no trait but imbecility, as an officer — he, 
against the laws of Kentucky, was by such a council asked to resign 
his station as Governor of Indiana, and take the rank and commis- 
sion of Major-General in the Kentucky militia, and lead on her 
armies in that fearful hour, to redeem our national disgrace and 
snatch from British domination and savage butchery the very coun- 
try now represented by the gentleman from Michigan. I have yet 
one other witness to call against the gentleman from Michigan. Sir, 
if the last rest of the illustrious dead is disturbed in this unnatural 
war upon a living soldier's honor, and a living patriot's fame, the 
fault is not mine. It will appear presently that the gentleman from 
Michigan has — unwittingly, it may be — dishonored and insulted the 
dead, and charged the pure and venerated Madison with hypocrisy 
and falsehood. If General Harrison had been the weak, wicked or 
imbecile thing the gentleman from Michigan would now pretend, 
was not this known to Mr. Madison, then President of the United 
States, who gave the orders under which General Harrison acted, 



REPLY TO GENERAL CRARY. 259 

and to whom the latter was responsible for his conduct ? Surely no 
one can suppose that there were wanting those who, if they could 
have done so with truth, would have made known any conduct of 
General Harrison at the time referred to, which seemed in any degree 
worthy of reprehension. With all these means of information what 
was the testimony of Mr. Madison respecting the battle of Tippeca- 
noe ? I will quote his own words from his own message to Congress 
about a month after the event. The message is dated 18th Decem- 
ber, 1811, and reads as follows: 

"While it is deeply lamented that so many valuable lives have 
been lost in the action which took place on the 7th ultimo, Congress 
will see with satisfaction the dauntless spirit of fortitude victoriously 
displayed by every description of troops engaged, as well as the col- 
lected firmness which distinguished their commander on an occasion 
requiring the utmost exertions of valor and discipline." 

Mr. Speaker, I have no pleasure in thus recapitulating and pil- 
ing proof upon proof to repel an insinuation, which I think is now 
apparent to all has been thrown out in the madness of party rage, 
without consideration, and founded only on a total perversion, or 
rather flat contradiction, of every historical record having relation to 
the subject. 

Something was said by the gentleman from Michigan about the 
encampment at Tippecanoe. If I understood him rightly, he con- 
demned it as injudicious, because it had a river on one side and a 
morass on another. Now, Mr. Speaker, I shall give no opinion on 
the question thus stated ; but it just now occurs to me that this very 
subject, which I think in the military vocabulary is called castrameta- 
tion, admits of some serious injury bearing upon the criticism under 
consideration. In almost all scientific research, we find that what is 
now reduced to system, and arises to the dignity of science, was at 
first the product of some casuality, which, falling under the notice 
of some reflecting mind, gave rise to surprising results. The acci- 
dental falling of an apple developed the great law of gravitation. I 
am sure I have somewhere seen it stated that Pyrrhus, the celebrated 
King of Epirus, who is allowed by all authority to have been the 
first general of his time, first learned to fortify his camp by having a 
river in his rear and a morass on his flank ; and this was first sug- 
gested to him by seeing a wild boar, when hunted to desperation, 
back himself against a tree or rock, that he might fight his pursuers, 
without danger of being assailed in his rear. Now, sir, if I compre- 



260 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

hend the gentleman from Michigan, he has against him on this point 
not only the celebrated king of Epirus, but also the wild boar, who, 
it seems, was the tutor of Pyrrhus in the art of castrametation. 
Here, then, are two approved authorities, one of whom nature 
taught the art of war, as she kindly did us colonels, and the other 
that renowned hero of Epirus, who gave the Romans so much 
trouble in his time. These authorities are near two thousand years 
old, and, as far as I know, unquestioned, till the gentleman from 
Michigan attacked them yesterday. Here, again, I ask who shall 
decide? Pyrrhus and the boar on one side, and the gentleman from 
Michigan on the other. Sir, I decline jurisdiction of the question, 
and leave the two hundred and forty colonels of this House to settle 
the contest, '^non nostrum tallies componere Hies." 

Mr. Speaker, I feel it quite impossible to withdraw from this 
part of the debate, without some comment on another assertion, or 
rather intimation, of the gentleman from Michigan, touching the 
conduct of General Harrison at the battle of the Thames. All who 
have made themselves acquainted with the history of that event, 
know that the order, which the American army was to attack the 
combined force of British and Indians at the Thames, was changed 
at the very moment when the onset was about to be made. This 
order of the General drew forth from Commodore Perry and others, 
who were in the staff of the army and on the ground at the time, 
the highest encomiums. The idea of this change in the plan of 
attack, it is now intimated, was not original with General Harrison, 
but was, as the gentleman seems to intimate, suggested to him by 
another, who, it is said, was on the ground at the time. Who that 
other person is, or was, the gentleman has not said, but seemed to 
intimate he was now in the other end of the Capitol, and thus we 
are led to suppose that the gentleman intends to say that Colonel 
Johnson, the Vice-President, is the gentleman alluded to. Sir, I 
regret very much that the gentleman should treat historical facts in 
this way. If there be any foundation for giving Colonel Johnson 
the honor of having suggested to General Harrison a movement for 
which the latter has received great praise, why not speak out and 
say so ? Why insinuate ? Why hint or suppose on a subject sus- 
ceptible of easy and positive proof? Does not the gentleman know 
that he is thus trifling with the character of a soldier, playing with 
reputation dearer than property or life to its possessor? Sir, I wish 
to know if Colonel Johnson, the Vice-President of the United States, 



REPLY TO GENERAL CRARY. 261 

has, by any word or act of his, given countenance to this insinua- 
tion? It would be well for all who speak at random on this subject 
to remember that there are living witnesses yet who can testify to 
the point in question. It may not be amiss to remind some that 
there is extant a journal of Colonel Wood, who afterward fell on the 
Niagara frontier. For the benefit of such, I, too, will state what 
can be proved in relation to the change made by General Harrison 
in the order of attack at the Thames. 

The position of the British and Indians had been reported to 
General Harrison by volunteer officers — brave men, it is true, but 
who, like many of us, were officers who had not seen a great deal of 
hard fighting. On this report the order of attack first intended was 
founded, but, before the troops were ordered on the attack. Colonel 
Wood was sent to examine and report the extent of front occupied 
by the British troops. Colonel Wood's military eye detected at 
once what had escaped the unpracticed observation of the others — 
that is, that the British regulars were drawn up in open order — and 
it was on his report that, at the moment, the change was made by 
General Harrison in the order of the attack — a movement which, in 
the estimation of such men as Wood, and Perry, and Shelby, was 
enough of itself to entitle General Harrison to the highest rank 
among the military men of the age, 

Mr. Speaker, when I review the historical testimony touching 
this portion of General Harrison's history, I confess my amazement 
at the Quixotic, (I pray my friend from Michigan to pardon me), 
but I must call it the Quixotic exhibition which he has made of him- 
self. Sir, the gentleman had no need to tell us he was a general of 
militia. His conduct in this discussion is proof of that — strong even 
as is his own word for the fact. He has shown all that reckless brav- 
ery which has always characterized our noble militia, but he has also, 
in this attack, shown that other quality of militia troops, which so 
frequently impels them to rush blindly forward, and often to their 
own destruction. I should like to hear many of the brave men 
around me speak of General Harrison. Some there are now under 
my eye who carry British bullets in their bodies, received while fight- 
ing under the command of General Harrison. I should be glad to 
hear my whole-souled and generous-hearted friend from Kentucky 
[Major Butler], who agrees with the gentleman from Michigan in 
general politics, who has not merely heard of battle, but who has 
mingled in war in all its forms, and fought his way from the ranks 



262 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

up to the head of a battalion — I say I should be glad to hear his 
opinions of the matters asserted, hinted at and insinuated by the 
gentleman from Michigan. 

Why, I ask, is this attempt to falsify the common history of 
our country made now, and why is it made here? Is it vainly imag- 
ined that Congressional speeches are to contradict accredited, long- 
known historical facts? Does the fierce madness of party indulge a 
conception so wild? 

Sir, I repeat that I feel only amazement at such an attempt. I 
could not sit still and witness it in silence. Much as I desired to 
speak to the House and the country on the question touching the 
Cumberland road, I should have left it to others had I not been 
impelled to get the floor to bear my testimony against the gross 
injustice which I thought was about to be done to a citizen — an hon- 
ored, cherished citizen of my own State. This House, Mr. Speaker, 
knows that I am not given to much babbling here. Yes, sir, you all 
know that, like Balaam's ass, I never speak here till I am kicked into 
it. I may claim credit, therefore, for sincerity, when I declare that 
a strong sense of justice alone could have called me into this debate. 
Let me now remind gentlemen, who may be tempted into a similar 
course with my friend from Michigan, that all such efforts must 
recoil with destructive effect upon those who make them. Sir, it has 
been the fortune of General Harrison to be identified with the civil 
and military history of this country for nearly half a century. What 
is to be gained, even to party, by perverting that history? Nothing. 
You may blot out a page of his biography here, and tear out a chap- 
ter of history there ; nay, you may, in the blindness of party rage, 
rival the Vandal and the Turk, and burn up all your books, and 
what then have you effected? Nothing but an insane exhibition of 
impotent party violence. General Harrison's history would still 
remain in the memory of his and your cotemporaries ; and coming 
events, not long to be delayed, will show to the world that his his- 
tory, in both legislation and war, dwells not merely in the memories 
of his countrymen, but is enshrined in their gratitude and engraven 
upon their hearts. 

Mr. Speaker, I come now to the discussion of what is really the 
question before the House, and with the hope that I may be entitled 
to the floor on Monday, I will, if it be the pleasure of the House, 
give way for a motion to adjourn. If I can obtain the floor on 
Monday, I promise the House that nothing shall tempt me to wau- 



REPLY TO GENERAL CRARY. 263 

der from the question touching the appropriation for the Cumberland 
road, a work which, if it be not crushed by the wretched poHcy of 
the Administration, will reflect as much glory upon your civil his- 
tory as the deeds of the great and patriotic citizen whose conduct I 
have been compelled to notice, ever did upon your military annals. 

At this point the House adjourned until the following Monday, when Mr. Cor- 
WIN resumed, but his remarks were never fully reported. 



ON THE ARMY BILL— BOUNTY LANDS TO SOLDIERS. 



Pending the discussion of the bill for the Increase of the Army, in the U. S. Sen- 
ate, January 14th, 1847, ^^- Cameron, of Pennsylvania, submitted an additional sec- 
tion, enacting — " That the Secretary of the Treasury be directed to issue a warrant for 
a half section of land to every officer, non-commissioned officer, musician and private, 
who shall serve in the Army of the United States during the present war with Mexico, 
or shall volunteer and enlist to serve during the war, and shall be honorably discharged 
before its termination ; the said land warrants to be located upon any land belonging to 
the United States that may be subject to private entry." 

This section was, in substance, generally approved, but objected to by influential 
Senators, as tending to retard the passage of the Army bill, or that it was, as they 
alleged, imperfect in its provisions. 

Mr. Corwin said he felt somewhat sohcitous that this measure, 
in some form or other, and at some time or other, should be passed 
into a law, and he thought, if gentlemen would give it some atten- 
tion, they would find it not so very imperfect ; they would find that 
it steered clear entirely of all those formidable objections, in regard 
to the system of bounty lands, as developed in practice heretofore. 
The reason why those particular sections of country where those 
bounty lands were to be located had been overlooked, could not pos- 
sibly apply to the lands now proposed to be granted by the Senator 
from Pennsylvania. The lands in those particular instances, and in 
all the laws, he believed, which were passed for the enlistment of 
soldiers in the war of 1812, were to be located in a particular place ; 
the result was, that no one who did not choose to make that place 
his residence, would purchase them. The prices sank, therefore, to 
about twenty dollars for each grant. This arose from the system of 
location adopted by the Government. But this was not the case 
here. These were to be located in any place where there were lands 
subject to private entry, and that would comprehend a district large 
enough to furnish a wide range for choice. The result of the pas- 
sage of this amendment, then, would be simply this : that every sol- 
dier who should be honorably discharged, or having served during 

the war, or volunteered for twelve months, would, at the end of his 

(264) 



BOUNTY LANDS TO SOLDIERS. 265 

term of service, be entitled to so much scrip as would purchase one 
hundred and sixty acres of land.* It was a proposition to grant to 
every soldier who actually served, and to the heirs of every soldier 
who died in service, an amount equal to $200, which should pass 
current in any land office for the purchase of land, instead of paying 
them in advance ; it was paying him, at the end of his service, this 
amount. He himself would have no hesitation in voting for such a 
proposition. A soldier's service was the hardest that any patriot 
could be called upon to perform, and he thought that they were 
entitled to receive at the hands of the Government this much at 
least. He did not like procrastinating this subject until this bill 
should be passed. He saw no objection to its being incorporated in 
it. Would the passage of that bill alone bring the men into the 
field ? The army was not half full ; would that supply the deficiency ? 
Why, if the thing were suggested in any other place, it would be 
called a palpable absurdity ! If this bill were to pass, to what family 
of legislation would it belong? It was the very bill to which such a 
provision as that proposed by the Senator from Pennsylvania prop- 
erly belonged. 

On the 19th January, Mr. Benton reported from the Senate Committee on Mili- 
tary Affairs, to which the bill had been recommitted, with instructions to bring in an 
amendment granting Bounty Lands, and which, having been lost by a tie vote after 
some discussion, Mr. Corwin offered the following substitute : 

" That each non-commissioned officer or private enlisted in the regular army, or 
regularly mustered in any volunteer company, who has served, or may serve during the 
present war with Mexico, and who shall at the end of his term of service, receive an 
honorable discharge, shall be entitled to receive a certificate or warrant from the War 
Department for one hundred and sixty acres of land, which may be located by the war- 
rantee, his heirs or legal representatives, at any land office in the United States, in one 
body, in conformity to the legal subdivisions of the public lands, in such districts as are 
then subject to private entry; Provided, That if the full term for which such person 
shall have volunteered shall not exceed one year, then the warrant to be for eighty 
acres. In case of death in service, or after his discharge, then the certificate to go — ■ 
first, to the widow ; second, to the children ; third, his father ; fourth, his mother ; and 
fifth, his brothers and sisters." 

Mr. Corwin said he merely desired to say to the Senate what 
was the difference between his substitute and the report of the com- 
mittee. The object which already had been urged from various 
quarters of the Senate, to grant lands to the soldiers, he should say 
nothing about, because he conceived that the mind of every Senator 
was made up on that subject. His principal objection to the bill 

* Mr. Cameron's proposition had been modified when these remarks were made. 



266 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

which had been reported from the Military Committee was, the 
restraints which it imposes on ahenations of the land after it had 
been acquired by the soldier; and he took that exception to it, in 
view of the principle upon which he supposed the Senate was acting 
in granting these donations at all. It was intended, as had been well 
observed by the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Webster], to 
operate as an inducement to those whom we now solicit to enter the 
military service of the country. Now, he thought, a very little 
reflection on the character and pursuits of those who were likely to 
enter the volunteer or regular service, would satisfy any man that 
the grant of a quarter section of land to be received by them at the 
end of their term of service, and to be inalienable by them, and, 
consequently, useless to them for the term of seven years, was not 
an inducement equivalent to that offered by the amendment which 
he had proposed. He would not pretend to be very accurate in the 
construction he had been able to put on the words employed in 
order to impose these restraints on alienation, but he thought he was 
not mistaken in this, that when the certificate for a quarter section of 
land shall be issued, it does not endow the holder of it with a right 
to dispose of it until the end of seven years, when a patent will be 
issued; and it prohibits him from making any use of it whatever, 
either by lien, collection of money by agreement for the occupation 
of the land, or any means whatever. In short, it was perfectly use- 
less to him for 3even years after his term of service, and also during 
that time, if he had not misunderstood the bill, the land was subject 
to taxation. No bond could be made, no agreement entered into by 
him for leasing it, or for the occupation of it in any way. It was 
simply saying to him that he should, within seven years from the 
expiration of his term of service, have a quarter section of land, 
and in the meantime he should pay taxes on it, without his being 
able to make any conceivable use of it, except he would go and 
reside upon it himself; for if he made any agreement, in any way, 
to remunerate him for the taxes which he might pay on that land, it 
could not be enforced. 

Now, he presumed, no one would pretend to deny that a very 
considerable proportion of those who were likely to enter the service, 
either as volunteers or as regular soldiers, would be found to belong 
to some of the trades or mechanical pursuits which were common to 
the men of this country. He thought he was not mistaken when he 
said one entire company raised in the State of Massachusetts, con- 



BOUNTY LANDS TO SOLDIERS. 267 

sisted altogether of mechanics — printers, tailors, shoemakers and 
hatters. Now, what inducement did they propose to a man accus- 
tomed all his lifetime to work in mechanical pursuits, when they 
offered him a certificate for a quarter section of land, on which he 
would have to pay taxes for seven years, which he must then make 
available to him, and not before ? Did they expect a shoemaker to 
go into the Western forests with the chopping-ax, or any of the 
other trades to engage in pursuits so uncongenial with those to which 
they had been accustomed? But according to this bill no man could 
do it for him, for every agreement made for lien or transfer was void. 
All these classes of society, then, would have no inducements at all ; 
for, as the distinguished Senator from Missouri has said, it would 
make twenty thousand men, after making war on the Mexicans, 
march into the far West and make war on the forests. It was com- 
pulsory on them to do so, under the penalty of twenty thousand 
quarter sections of land. 

Now, Mr. C. 's object was to make the land alienable, and thus 
hold out a proper and adequate inducement. He knew very well 
that the Senator from Missouri had this object perhaps much more at 
heart than he (Mr. C.) had. They all aimed at the same thing. 
His amendment proposed to give a quarter section of land, or a war- 
rant which would be worth that, to all who served for twelve months, 
at the expiration of his term of service. It might be located any- 
where. It was so much scrip which was receivable in payment for 
public lands. That quarter section, instead of being taken up in 
tracts of forty or fifty acres each, by his amendment was proposed 
to be one tract ; and to those who had not served twelve months, to 
meet the views of the Senator from Missouri, he gave eighty acres 
of land, or a warrant for that quantity, which would be land scrip 
equal to one hundred dollars, estimating the land at the present rate 
of $1.25 per acre. This, then, would operate exactly as so much 
money paid into the hands of the soldiers, or agreed to be paid. 

Mr. C. appealed, as the Senator from Massachusetts had done, 
to their experience in the war of 1812. He thought it would be 
found, on a recurrence to the statute, that during that time three 
hundred and twenty acres were received at one time ; but even three 
hundred and twenty acres of bounty land were found not to produce 
the desired result, and a bounty in money was found to be better, 
for that alone succeeded in filling up the ranks. If, then, their 
experience was worth anything, the proposition to give land to the 



.268 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

extent proposed by the committee would be found to be insufficient. 
But by converting it into money, or the equivalent of money, and 
making it inalienable or untransferable until his term of service 
expires, the soldier would get what they proposed he should realize, 
and they would attain the great object desired by all. 

After further discussion, Mr. Benton inquired of Mr. C, What is the meaning of 
"legal representatives?" 

Mr. Corwin said it was a great while since he had been exam- 
ined for admission to the bar, when such a question might have been 
proper. If the Senator from Missouri made the inquiry for his own 
information, he (Mr. C.) would rather refer him to the library. But 
if he simply inquired what my opinion is of the meaning of the 
phrase "legal representatives," I will say to him that I mean those 
persons who represent the estate of a dead man after he is dead. 

Incidental remarks were here made by Senators, when Mr. Corwin continued. 

He felt, when he offered this amendment, the full force of the 
suggestions which had just been made by the Senator from Missouri, 
and he would add that it had never been subject to the action of the 
Senate, though he knew that its general principle had been before 
the committee, and must necessarily have been discussed by them. 

Mr. C. wished now to modify his amendment by striking out 
those words which were objectionable to the Senator from Maryland 
[Mr. R. Johnson]. When he drew up this paper he thought this 
bounty of the Government ought to be confined to those who shall 
perform service in this Mexican war. He would, however, now 
modify his amendment, as had been suggested, leaving the bounty 
to apply to all who enter the service and perform duty during the 
Mexican war. 

January 20th, 1847, — same subject. 

Mr. Corwin replied (to Senators) that the bill was intended to 
meet every case. The gentleman would see that all who were hon- 
orably discharged were provided for, if they had been in the service 
for three months. 

He desired (after remarks by Senators Chalmers and Bagly) to 
explain a difficulty which had been suggested by the Senator from 
Indiana [Mr. Hannegan], and which had presented itself to his own 
mind. In granting bounties he admitted that some respect should 
be paid to the length of service, so that it should not appear to be a 
mere gratuity to the troops, but that the bounty should bear some 



BOUNTY LANDS TO SOLDIERS. 269 

relation to the service rendered. In the further prosecution of the 
war, it was not hkely that any troops would be raised, whether regu- 
lar soldiers or volunteers, but for longer periods of service — the for- 
mer for five years, and the latter during the war. As the principal 
object of this bill was therefore prospective, and the design to 
recruit the army speedily, it did appear to him that there should not 
be a greater bounty given to those who enter during the war now 
pending, than to those who went into it without any other motive 
than the laws furnished at the time they entered into the service. 
Now, he supposed, that every one who was acquainted with the gen- 
erosity of the Senator from Indiana [Mr. Hannegan], knew that if 
he could do it from his own private purse, he would be willing to 
bestow on the soldier any gratuity that might be necessary; but 
when they were disposing of the money in the public treasury, it 
appeared to him that they should be careful to give only in cases 
where it was necessary to make some compensation to those who 
were to receive it. And in making compensation, they must also 
make a discrimination between those who have served but a limited 
time, and those whose service has been longer. 

Again, there was some misunderstanding on another point. 
Now, he contended that his amendment did, in fact and in substance, 
give to a soldier receiving a land-warrant a money-warrant — dollars 
and cents — restricting it to this, that it was only receivable in pay- 
ment of public land. It was land-scrip as much as was that which 
the Senator from Texas proposed. 

January 29, 1847, after a speech in opposition from Mr. Benton, on the same 
subject, in which he contended that it would " expunge the land of revenue for half a 
dozen years ;" that " all the John Smiths, John Joneses, Billy Williamses — all the 
Blacks, Browns, Greys, Reds, Whites — all the Longs and Shorts — all the Youngs and 
Olds — all that interminable nomenclature of common names — will become breeders of 
warrants " — Mr. Corwin again spoke as follows : 

He felt as much regret as it was possible for the Senator from 
Missouri to feel, at the delay which has occurred under the present 
exigencies in the passage of this army bill — a delay occasioned by 
the various propositions to amend which had been presented by the 
Senator from Missouri himself, and other Senators ; and he regretted, 
also, that it was to be still further delayed by what the honorable 
Senator from Missouri himself had very happily denominated "an 
obstinate and persevering opposition " to the amendment now under 
consideration, which, it would be recollected, had once passed by a 
majority which he believed had not been accorded to any other fea- 



270 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

ture of the bill. He had to regret, for one, that it was not in his 
power, not being consistent with his sense of duty, to accede to the 
request made by the honorable Senator from Missouri yesterday ; and 
he was sure that honorable Senator was not inclined at all to deny 
to him, or to any other Senator upon that floor, the same right to 
form an opinion upon this important subject as he claimed for him- 
self As it was sincerely not his wish to procrastinate a vote which 
it was desirable should be speedily taken upon this bill, he desired 
merely to occupy a few moments in replying to what had been said 
by the honorable Senator from Missouri. And first, he would pre- 
mise that although everything which had been presented to them this 
morning by the Senator from Missouri, and everything that might be 
legitimately urged in reply to the arguments of the Senator from 
Missouri, had already been very fully presented, and he doubted not 
very fully considered by every Senator upon that floor ; yet, having 
been the means (by what might almost be termed an accident, it was 
true,) of presenting this amendment, and having heard the terms in 
which it had been denounced, he supposed that it would be deemed 
proper for him to occupy a few moments with some observations 
before taking the final vote upon the question now to be determined. 
There had been some things revealed in this incidental discussion in 
reference to the war, and to the troops Avhich had been so freely and 
fully spoken of, and in very laudatory terms, on all sides of the 
chamber, which it was very difficult to reconcile with what was 
understood to be the opinion of gentlemen on all sides. 

The arguments of the Senator from Missouri, as he understood 
them, rested upon two grounds exclusively. The Senator con- 
tended, in the first place, that the bounty land offered to the soldier 
was not necessary to procure the services of the soldier. This was 
as clearly an objection to any bill that could be presented on this 
subject as it was to this. The Senator contended, and presented it 
to them as an argument against the passage of this amendment, that 
it was now a matter of contention between the patriotic citizens of 
this country, who wished to serve in this extraordinary war, as to 
who among them should be accepted, without any reference what- 
ever to this bounty. If this was so, and if there was no justice in 
voting the bounty, or necessity for voting it, then let the vote be 
taken upon the question without any further controversy. 

If the Senator from Missouri meant to say that men could be 
enlisted into the service for their monthly pay alone ; if he meant to 



BOUNTY LANDS TO SOLDIERS. 271 

declare — and he knew no man whose opinions upon this subject 
were entitled to greater weight — if he meant to declare that it was 
squandering the public property to give them lands in return for the 
lives of their soldiers, in return for the blood to be shed in this for- 
eign war, let the proposition be brought forward in a distinct and 
separate form, and he would be as ready to vote upon it as he was 
when attached to this bill. He had understood, whether the project 
of giving bounty land originated with politicians or private individ- 
uals, that it was the intention of Congress — an intention which had 
been expressed in both Houses — that the soldier who served in this 
war should have bounty land as a part of his compensation for those 
services which, it was admitted on all hands, eminently entitled him 
to some compensation. If this was so, what became of the argu- 
ment of the Senator from Missouri, that it was giving away eight 
millions of acres of the public lands, of the value of twelve millions 
of dollars, at the minimum price of those lands, for nothing? 

If it be true, continued Mr. Corwin, that the gallant men who 
are willing to fight our battles in Mexico or elsewhere — for God 
knows where that roving army of yours will stop — if it be true that 
the whole population of this country capable of bearing arms are 
ready to precipitate themselves into this war in the enemy's country, 
and that without price, without reward, or the hope of reward, 
where is the necessity for increasing their monthly pay, as is pro- 
posed by the bill now on your table? Sir, shall we drive a Jew's 
bargain with our soldiers ? Shall we give a definite value for their 
patriotism ? Shall we count every groan ? Shall we give value for 
every drop of blood? Shall we pay so much for a soldier's hfe? So 
much as a compensation to the women and children who have been 
made widows and orphans by the war ? Shall we give them an esti- 
mated sum as value for their loss ? But I do not suppose that any 
argument such as this could very readily find a lodgment in the head 
or the heart of any Senator here ; nor do I understand that the Senator 
from Missouri wishes anything of this sort. He wishes the Senate 
to pause, and lock the door against frauds, while granting a liberal 
compensation to the soldier. Now, let us look at this argument a 
little in detail. How will it be elaborated into a fact? 

As he had understood the Senate to determine upon giving 
these bounty lands in some form or other, and as he understood they 
were for giving the eight millions in the form which he proposed in 
his amendment, to be actually settled and held by the soldier who 



272 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

performed the service, or by some representative of the soldier, he 
would ask, in a pecuniary point of view to the Government itself, if 
this land was to be considered revenue and property which the Gov- 
ernment had a right to use, by giving it either in the form of money 
or in the form of bounties to soldiers entering the war, where was 
the difference, as far as the Government was concerned, whether that 
eight millions of acres was given in one form or in the other? The 
argument, as far as it rested upon the fact of giving away these 
lands, it seemed to him the Senator had not well considered. The 
main part of the Senator's opposition rested upon his desire to pro- 
tect the soldier, in the first place, from the frauds which might be 
perpetrated upon him, and, in the next place, to stay the march of 
that moral pestilence, of those villainies which would be practiced 
upon the soldier if this bill should pass. To this view of the ques- 
tion he was inclined to attach a considerable degree of importance. 
He could see no difference between allowing the soldier who dis- 
charged his duty in the public service to be paid in land, or in allow- 
ing him to be paid in money. If it were considered that the valor 
and courage of the soldier entitled him to a certain amount of com- 
pensation, it might be a proper subject to consider whether that 
amount should be greater or less, but he could see no difference at all 
between giving him land or money — none ; none to the Government, 
unquestionably; none whatever in any scheme of finance which 
might be presented for the prosecution of this war. If, therefore, it 
were desirable that Congress should give to the soldier a certain 
amount of compensation, it could just as well be given in the form 
of monthly pay as in a grant of land. He could see no difference 
between granting land, from which the resources of the Government 
were partly to be derived, and creating a debt, which the Senator from 
Missouri said must be paid by the next generation, and voting for a 
loan of twenty-three millions, which must be redeemed at the time 
specified. Gentlemen did not seem to have their financial apprehen- 
sions aroused at all when it was proposed to borrow twenty-three 
millions of dollars, for which, like every other sum borrowed which 
they were unable to pay, they would have to give their note. There 
was no tremulous apprehension about borrowing money. But these 
were considerations which should have been thought of long before 
they entered upon this unprofitable war. Borrowing money was one 
of the curses attending upon all wars. Debt was one of the curses 
which war necessarily involved — debt to be entailed upon posterity, 



BOUNTY LANDS TO SOLDIERS. 273 

if the present generation were not able to discharge it. It could not 
have escaped the apprehensions of any gentleman who held a seat 
upon that floor, on the day when their army passed the Nueces, or 
on the day when it was said Congress sanctioned the passage of the 
army beyond the boundary of the United States — it could not have 
escaped their apprehension that not merely twelve millions of dol- 
lars, but hundreds of millions would have to be expended upon the 
war — a war to be carried on between this country and a sister repub- 
lic, which they had undertaken to subjugate by their arms. The 
honorable Senator from Missouri, and every Senator, must be aware 
that this would be the consequence of their conduct. He had been 
somewhat surprised, he confessed, at the minute details given of the 
schemes of fraud which the Senator from Missouri had asserted 
would be practiced, and he doubted not such reports had reached his 
ears ; but he was pained to hear such schemes of peculation and 
fraud connected with the names of certain officers of the Government. 
That companies of scoundrels would be formed all over the coun- 
try, as the Senator said, to endeavor to despoil the soldier of his 
hard-earned bounty, he had no doubt. It was one of the inevitable 
consequences of all wars ; it was one of the curses which belonged 
to a state of war. It had been the case, as the Senator from Mis- 
souri had said, and he read a statement of Mr. Jefferson to prove, 
after the close of the Revolutionary war. It was a well-known fact, 
that the men who had passed through the fires of the struggle, were 
found endeavoring to defraud each other out of what they had re- 
ceived as a compensation for their services. It had ever been so, and 
would be so to all time, as long as human nature was such as to 
induce men to go to war at all. So long as men could find no better 
mode of settling national controversies than by going to war; of 
marching armies against each other in battle array, instead of follow- 
ing the dictates of humanity; instead of exercising the faculties 
with which God had endowed them, in avoiding the necessity of 
warfare, there would be scoundrels enough found to plunder and 
cheat one another. So long as national controversies were to be set- 
tled in the old barbarous mode, so long would such a disposition be 
found to exist. But he was surprised to hear from the Senator from 
Missouri that the very officers of the Government, whose appoint- 
ments the Senate was called upon to sanction, and commissioned by 
the President to carry on the war, which was emphatically his war, 
he was surprised to hear that men in this position would be found 
19 



274 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

SO reckless, so lost to the dictates of honor and of conscience, as to 
practice frauds of this description. Could this be true? Could it 
be that those who were daily associated with the soldiers, witnessing 
their sufferings and hearing the groans of the dying, would be guilty 
of robbing the soldier of the bounty which his country had 
bestowed? He asked the Senator, was this the condition in which 
this Republic was now placed? Were such the official instrumental- 
ities to be sent abroad to execute their duties in the service of the 
Government upon the field of battle? His knowledge of human 
nature would hardly allow him to suppose it had been sunk to that 
depth of degradation and of infamy. Such a supposition contem- 
plated the existence of a class of society more degraded than he was 
willing to suppose any man who had received his commission from 
the Government could be. They might, perhaps, find in the dens 
and hells of cities men who would come out from their hiding-places, 
when they knew that eight millions of acres of land had been put 
into the market for the benefit of those who served, but he did not 
think that men who accompanied the soldier at his last gasp would 
deliberately plan such schemes of fraud. He said he did not believe 
it was competent for any intelligent man to frame a law, or devise a 
plan which would not be subject to the objections which had been 
raised by the Senator from Missouri. Men ever would be subject to 
impositions, but he did not believe these men would be more subject 
to impositions than any other class of men. 

Mr. Corwin said the Senator from Pennsylvania had told them 
that if they would pass this bill, there were five companies now 
ready to volunteer, and to take the field from that State, and that 
they consisted of some of the best men of that State. That was a 
pretty good certificate of character; and were such men likely to 
give up all rights belonging to them to bodies of scoundrels? Did 
the Senator from Missouri mean to say that the young men who vol- 
unteer to serve their country are the sort of men toward whom the 
Government could exercise neither the functions of justice nor liber- 
ality without having the bounty of the Government abused? Were 
they men of such dissolute habits that they were incapable of taking 
care of the property they earned, and that the Government must 
therefore assume toward the soldiers of our army the relation which 
some of the States assumed under the laws toward confirmed drunk- 
ards, and appoint them guardians ? What became of the training 
and discipline of which they had heard so much as belonging to the 



BOUNTY LANDS TO SOLDIERS. 275 

service of the country ? What became of the moral teachings of the 
chaplains, for whose appointment they had heard so much? Was it 
true, in short, that twenty thousand regular soldiers were to serve 
during this war, and go through a moral training there, and that they 
would come out of it nothing but examples of vileness, ignorance 
and profligacy? Was it true that the men who volunteer to fight 
this iniquitous war were the men described by the Senator from Mis- 
souri, not able to exercise the necessary functions of freemen, and 
men of full age? He would not undertake to put his opinion on 
this subject against the opinion of the Senator from Missouri — he 
would not lightly question the statement of the Senator from South 
Carolina [Mr. Butler], who said yesterday that none were fit to 
fight in this war but those who were ready to sacrifice their own will 
to the absolute mastery of others; but if these things were true, it 
would become them to pause and consider whether it was not best 
to put an end to this horrible war. If it were true that in enlisting 
twenty thousand soldiers they made twenty thousand slaves out of 
twenty thousand freemen, he thought it would be poor compensa- 
tion, both for the generation that now is and for that which is to 
come after us, in the pompous phrase of the day, at such a cost to 
vindicate the honor of the country and the glory of its flag. But he 
could not think that the representations of the Senator from Mis- 
souri were all true. He could not believe this nation would plunge 
into a war which was to be so pernicious in its consequences. 

The Senator from Missouri proposed to protect the soldier from 
these frauds by making the bounty inalienable for seven years. This 
was presuming that those who, as the Senator from Missouri elo- 
quently described it, escaped the embrace of the battle-storm, and 
avoided a grave upon the tops of the Cordilleras, were not capable 
of controlling the bounty which the Government bestowed upon 
them, and that Congress must, therefore, constitute itself their guar- 
dian. He was of opinion, that if they put the matter upon this 
footing, and said to the soldier, that at the end of the war he should 
emigrate to the far West and settle upon his land, or else be 
debarred from the enjoyment of his bounty for seven years, it would 
have the effect of deterring men from entering the army. It would 
hardly be necessary, he believed, to pass an act to prevent a Senator 
from making a contract respecting his traveling allowance and per 
diem, of placing any lien upon it for a certain length of time, lest 
the money might fall into the hands of speculators, who were hover- 



276 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

ing in clouds around the Capitol, darkening the air with their num- 
bers. That would be a strange law; but he thought it would be 
quite as reasonable as the restriction proposed by the Senator to be 
placed upon these bounty lands. 

After some further remarks, Mr. Corwin concluded by saying, 
that he thought it would not be very becoming in the Senate to hes- 
itate to grant, out of 800,000,000 acres of the public lands, the small 
pittance of 8,000,000 to the soldiers as compensation for their ser- 
vices. They had already passed a bill giving 5,000,000 acres to 
those who choose to peacefully settle in Oregon. If a Southern 
gentleman, with his black servant, went to Oregon, that servant 
would be entitled, by his mere residence there, to avail himself of 
this bounty. While looking out across the broad Pacific, and con- 
templating the time when the descendants of Japhet should subju- 
gate the descendants of Shem, here was a man from a state of servi- 
tude becoming a free man, and claiming his half section of land, 
which had been granted by the bounty of this Government. While 
their maw was capacious enough to swallow these five millions in ref- 
erence to Oregon, they were gurgling and choking at eight millions 
to be granted as a reward for the valor and the patriotism of those 
who periled their lives in their country's service. 



/ 



ON THE MEXICAN WAR. 



In the Senate of the United States, February nth, 1847, the bill making further 
appropriations to bring the existing war with Mexico to a speedy and honorable con- 
clusion, being under consideration, Mr. Corwin said: 

Mr. President: 

I am not now about to perform the useless task of surveying 
the whole field of debate occupied in this discussion. It has been 
carefully reaped, and by vigilant and strong hands; and yet, Mr. 
President, there is a part of that field which promises to reward a 
careful gleaner with a valuable sheaf or two, which deserves to be 
bound up before the whole harvest is gathered. And still this so 
tempting prospect could not have allured me into this debate, had that 
motive not been strengthened by another, somewhat personal to my- 
self, and still more interesting to those I represent. Anxious as I 
know all are to act, rather than debate, I am compelled, for the rea- 
sons I have assigned, to solicit the attention of the Senate. I do 
this chiefly that I may discharge the humble duty of giving to the 
Senate, and through this medium to my constituents, the motives 
and reasons which have impelled me to occupy a position always 
undesirable, but, in times like the present, painfully embarrassing. 

I have been compelled, from convictions of duty which I could 
not disregard, to differ not merely with those on the other side of 
the chamber, with whom I seldom agree, but also to separate, on 
one or two important questions, from a majority of my friends on 
this side — those who compose here that Whig party, of which, I 
suppose, I may yet call myself a member. 

Diversity of opinion, on most subjects affecting human affairs, 
is to be expected. Unassisted mind, in its best estate, has not yet 
attained to uniformity, much less to absolute certainty, in matters 
belonging to the dominion of speculative reason. This is peculiarly 
and emphatically true where we endeavor to deduce from the pres- 
ent, results, the accomplishment of which reach far into the future, 

(277) 



278 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

and will only clearly develop themselves in the progress of time. 
From the present state of the human mind, this is a law of intellect 
quite as strong as necessity ; and yet, after every reasonable allow- 
ance for the radical difference in intellectual structure, culture, habits 
of thought and the application of thought to things, the singularly 
opposite avowals made by the two Senators on the other side of the 
chamber (I mean the Senator from South Carolina, Mr. Calhoun, 
and the Senator from Michigan, Mr. Cass,) must have struck all who 
heard them as a curious and mournful example of the truth of which 
I have spoken. The Senator from Michigan [Mr. Cass], in contem- 
plating the present aspects and probable future course of our public 
affairs, declared that he saw nothing to alarm the fears or depress the 
hopes of the patriot. To his serene, and, as I fear, too apathetic 
mind, all is calm ; the sentinel might sleep securely on his watch- 
tower. The ship of State seems to him to expand her sails under a 
clear sky, and move on, with prosperous gales, upon a smooth sea. 
He admonishes all not to anticipate evil to come, but to fold their 
hands and close their eyes in quietude, ever mindful of the consola- 
tory text, "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" But the 
Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun], summoning from the 
depths of his thoughtful and powerful mind all its energies, and 
looking abroad on the present condition of the republic, is pained 
with fearful apprehension, doubt, distrust and dismay. To his vis- 
ion, made strong by a long life of careful observation, made keen by 
a comprehensive view of past history, the sky seems overcast with 
impending storms, and the dark future is shrouded in impenetrable 
gloom. When two such minds thus differ, those less familiar with 
great subjects affecting the happiness of nations may well pause, 
before they rush to a conclusion on this, a subject which, in all its 
bearings, immediate and remote, affects certainly the present prosper- 
ity, and probably the liberty, of two republics, embracing together 
nearly thirty millions of people. Mr. President, it is a fearful 
responsibility we have assumed ; engaged in flagrant, desolating war 
with a neighboring republic, to us thirty millions of God's creatures 
look up for that moderated wisdom which, if possible, may stay the 
march of misery, and restore to them, if it may be so, mutual feel- 
ings of good-will, with all the best blessings of peace. 

I sincerely wish it were in my power to cherish those placid 
convictions of security which have settled upon the mind of the Sen- 
ator from Michigan. So far from this, I have been, in common with 



ON THE MEXICAN WAR. 279 

the Senator from South Carolina, oppressed with melancholy fore- 
bodings of evils to come, and not unfrequently by a conviction that 
each step we take in this unjust war, may be the last in our career ; 
that each chapter we write in Mexican blood, may close the volume 
of our history as a free people. Sir, I am the less inclined to listen 
to the siren song the Senator from Michigan sings to his own soul, 
because I have heard its notes before. I know the country is at 
this moment suffering from the fatal apathy into which it was lulled 
a few years ago. Every one must recall to his mind, with pleasing 
regret, the happy condition of the country in 1843, when that other 
question, the prelude to this, the annexation of Texas, was agitated 
here; we remember how it attracted the attention of the whole 
Union ; we remember that the two great leaders of the two great par- 
ties, agreeing in scarcely any other opinion, were agreed in that. 
They both predicted that if Texas were annexed, war with Mexico 
would be the probable result. We were told then by others, as now 
by the Senator from Michigan, that all was well — all was calm ; that 
Mexico would not fight, or if she would, she was too weak to wage 
the struggle with any effect upon us. The sentinel was then told to 
sleep upon his watch-tower; "sufficient unto the day is the evil 
thereof," was sung to us then in notes as soft and sweet as now. Mr. 
President, "the day" has come, and with it has come war, the most 
direful curse wherewith it has pleased God to afflict a sinful world. 
Such have been the fatal effects of lulling into apathy the public 
mind, on a subject which agitated it, as well it might, to its pro- 
foundest depths. 

I repeat, sir, the day has- come, as was then predicted, and the 
evil predicted has come with it. We are here, sir, now, not as then, 
at peace with all the world ; not now, as then, with laws that brought 
into your treasury everything adequate to its wants ; not now, as 
then, free from debt, and the apprehension of debt and taxation, its 
necessary consequence. But we are here with a treasury that is beg- 
gared ; that lifts up its imploring hands to the monopolists and capi- 
talists of the country; that sends out its notes and "promises to 
pay" into every mart and every market in the world, begging for a 
pittance from every hand to help to swell the amount now necessary 
to extricate us from a war, inevitable, as it now seems it was, from 
that very act which was adopted under such flattering promises two 
years ago. Mr. President, it is no purpose of mine to arraign the 
conduct of the United States upon that occasion ; it is no purpose of 



280 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

mine to treat this young and newly-adopted sister — the State of 
Texas — as an ahen or stranger in this family of republics, I allude 
to this only to show how little reliance is to be placed upon those 
favorable anticipations in which gentlemen indulge with regard to 
consequences which may flow from measures to which they are 
strongly wedded, either by feeling or party attachment. 

Is there nothing else in our history of even the past year to jus- 
tify the Senator from South Carolina in the pregnant declaration, 
that in the whole period of his public life, comprehending the most 
eventful in the history of the Republic, there had never been a time 
when so much danger was threatened to the interests, happiness and 
liberties of the people. Sir, if any one could sit down, free from 
the excitements and biases which belong to public affairs — could such 
a one betake himself to those sequestered solitudes, where thought- 
ful men extract the philosophy of history from its facts, I am quite 
sure no song of "all's well" would be heard from his retired cell. 
No, sir, looking at the events of the last twelve months, and form- 
ing his judgment of these by the suggestions which history teaches, 
and which she alone can teach, he would record another of those sad 
lessons which, though often taught, are, I fear, forever to be disre- 
garded. He would speak of a Republic, boasting that its rights 
were secured, and the restricted powers of its functionaries bound 
up in the chains of a written Constitution ; he would record on his 
page, also, that such a people, in the wantonness of strength or the 
fancied security of the moment, had torn that written Constitution 
to pieces, scattered its fragments to the winds, and surrendered 
themselves to the usurped authority of ONE MAN. 

He would find written in that Constitution, Congress shall have 
power to declare war; he would find everywhere, in that old charter, 
proofs clear and strong, that they who framed it intended that Con- 
gress, composed of two Houses, the representatives of the States, 
and the people, should (if any were pre-eminent) be the controlling 
power. He would find there a President designated ; whose general 
and almost exclusive duty it is to execute, not to make the law. Turn- 
ing from this to the history of the last ten months, he would find 
that the President alone, without the advice or consent of Congress, 
had, by a bold usurpation, made war on a neighboring republic; 
and what is quite as much to be deplored, that Congress, whose 
high powers were thus set at naught and defied, had, with 
ready and tame submission, yielded to the usurper the wealth and 



ON THE MEXICAN WAR. 281 

power of the nation to execute his will, as if to swell his iniquitous 
triumph over the very Constitution which he and they had alike 
sworn to support. 

If any one should inquire for the cause of a war in this coun- 
try, where should he resort for an answer? Surely to the journals of 
both Houses of Congress, since Congress alone has power to declare 
war ; yet, although we have been engaged in war for the last ten 
months, a war which has tasked all the fiscal resources of the coun- 
try to carry it forward, you shall search the records and the archives 
of both Houses of Congress in vain for any detail of its causes, any 
resolve of Congress that war shall be waged. How is it, then, that 
a peaceful and peace-loving people, happy beyond the common lot 
of man, busy in every laudable pursuit of life, have been forced to 
turn suddenly from these and plunge into the misery, the vice and 
crime which ever have been, and ever shall be, the attendant 
scourges of war? The answer can only be, it was by the act and 
will of the President alone, and not by the act or will of Congress, 
the war-making department of the Government. 

Mr. President, was it not due to ourselves, to the lofty charac- 
ter for peace as well as probity which we profess to be ours, and 
which till recently we might justly claim — was it not due to the civ- 
ilization of the age, that we, the representatives of the States and 
the people, should have set forth the causes which might impel us to 
invoke the fatal arbitrament of war, before we madly rushed upon it ? 
Even the Senator from South Carolina, attached as he has been by 
party ties to the President, and therefore, as we may suppose, 
acquainted with Jiis motives for his war with Mexico, was compelled 
to say the other day in debate, that, up to that hour, the causes of 
this war were left to conjecture. The reason of this singular anom- 
aly, sir, is to be found in the fact that the President, and not Con- 
gress, declared and commenced this war. How is this, Mr. Presi- 
dent? How IS it that we have so disappointed the intentions of our 
fathers, and the hopes of all the friends of written Constitutions? 
When the makers of that Constitution assigned to Congress alone, 
the most delicate and important power — ta declare war — a power 
more intimately affecting the interests, immediate and remote, of the 
people, than any which a government is ever called on to exert — 
when they withheld this great prerogative from the Executive and 
confided it to Congress alone, they but consulted in this, as in every 
other work of their hands, the gathered wisdom of all preceding 



282 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

times. Whether they looked to the stern despotisms of the ancient 
Asiatic world, or the military yoke of imperial Rome, or the feudal 
institutions of the middle ages, or the more modern monarchies of 
Europe, in each and all of these, where the power to wage war was 
held by one or by a few, it had been used to sacrifice, not to protect 
the many. The caprice or ambition of the tyrant had always been 
the cause of bloody and wasting war, while the subject millions had 
been treated by their remorseless masters, only as "tools in the 
hands of him who knew how to use them." They therefore declared 
that this fearful power should be confided to those who represent the 
people, and those who here in the Senate represent the sovereign 
States of the Republic. After securing this power to Congress, 
they thought it safe to give the command of the armies in peace and 
war to the President. We shall see hereafter, how by an abuse of 
his power as commander-in-chief, the President has drawn to himself 
that of declaring war, or commencing hostilities with a people with 
whom we were on terms of peace, which is substantially the same. 

The men of former times took very good care that your stand- 
ing army should be exceedingly small, and they who had the most 
lively apprehensions of investing in one man the power to command 
the army, always inculcated upon the minds of the people the neces- 
sity of keeping that army within limits, just as small as the necessity 
of the external relations of the country would possibly admit. It 
has happened, Mr. President, that when a little disturbance on your 
Indian frontier took place. Congress was invoked for an increase of 
your military force. Gentlemen came here who had seen partial ser- 
vice in the armies of the United States. They tell you that the militia 
of the country is not to be relied upon — that it is only in the regular 
army of the United States that you are to find men competent to 
fight the battles of the country, and from time to time when that 
necessity has seemed to arise, forgetting this old doctrine, that a 
large standing army in time of peace was always dangerous to human 
liberty, we have increased that army from six thousand up to about 
sixteen thousand men. Mr. President, the other day we gave ten 
regiments more; and for not giving it within the quick time 
demanded by our master, the commander-in-chief, .some minion, I 
know not who, for I have not looked into this matter until this morn- 
ing, feeding upon the fly-blown remnants that fall from the Execu- 
tive shambles and lie putrefying there, has denounced us as Mexi- 
cans, and called the American Republic to take notice, that there 



ON THE MEXICAN WAR. 283 

was in the Senate, a body of men chargeable with incivism — Mexi- 
cans in heart — traitors to the United States. 

I trust, Mr. President, that our master will be appeased by the 
facility with which, immediately after that rebuke of his minion, the 
Senate acted upon the bill and gave him the army which he required. 
I trust that he will now forget that law which, as commander-in-chief 
of the army of the United States and President of this great North 
American Republic for the time being, he promulgated to us in the 
message, and those commands which he was pleased to deliver at the 
opening of this session to his faithful and humble servitors in both 
branches of the American Congress, admonishing us that we would 
be considered as giving "aid and comfort" to his enemy — not ours! 
— Jiis — if one word should be said unfavorable to the motives which 
have brought the royal will to the conclusion that he would precipi- 
tate this Republic into a war with Mexico ! I trust His Majesty, in 
consideration of our faithful services in augmenting the forces of the 
Republic agreeably to the commands which we have received from 
the throne, will be induced to relax a little when he comes to exe- 
cute that law of treason upon one at least so humble as myself! I 
do remember,. Mr. President, — you will remember, Mr. President, — 
your recollection of history will furnish you with a case which will, 
I think, operate in my favor in a question of that sort. 

Some time in the history of the royal Tudors in England, when 
a poor Englishman, for differing from His Majesty, or Her Majesty, 
on some subject — it might be religious faith — was condemned to be 
hanged and quartered and emboweled, out of special grace, in a par- 
ticular case where penitence was expressed, the hangman was admon- 
ished to give the culprit time to choke before he began to chop up 
his limbs and take out his bowels ! 

Now, Mr. President, I have already stated that I do not intend 
to occupy the Senate with a discussion of those varieties of topics 
which naturally enforce themselves upon my attention in considering 
this subject. It must have occurred to everybody how utterly impo- 
tent the Congress of the United States now is for any purpose what- 
ever, but that of yielding to the President every demand which he 
makes for men and money, unless they assume that only position 
which is left — that which, in the history of other countries, in times 
favorable to human liberty, has been so often resorted to as a check 
upon arbitrary power — withholding money, refusing to grant the ser- 



284 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

vices of men when demanded for purposes which are not deemed to 
be proper. 

When I review the doctrines of the majority here, and consider 
their apphcation to the existing war, I confess I am at a loss to 
determine whether the world is to consider our conduct as a ridicu- 
lous farce, or be lost in amazement at such absurdity in a people 
calling themselves free. The President, without asking the consent 
of Congress, involves us in war, and the majority here, without ref- 
erence to the justice or necessity of the war, call upon us to grant 
men and money at the pleasure of the President, who they say, is 
charged with the duty of carrying on the war and responsible for its 
result. If we grant the means thus demanded, the President can 
carry forward this war for any end, or from any motive, without 
limit of time or place. 

With these doctrines for our guide, I will thank any Senator to 
furnish me with any means of escaping from the prosecution of this 
or any other war for a hundred years to come, i/ it pleased the 
President who shall be, to continue it so long. Tell me, ye who 
contend that being in war, duty demands of Congress for its prose- 
cution, all the money and every able-bodied man in America to carry 
it on if need be, who also contend that it is the right of the Presi- 
dent, without the control of Congress, to march your embodied 
hosts to Monterey, to Yucatan, to Mexico, to Panama, to China, and 
that under penalty of death to the officer who disobeys him — tell 
me, I demand it of you, tell me, tell the American people, tell the 
nations of Christendom, what is the difference between your Ameri- 
can democracy and the most odious, most hateful despotism, that a 
merciful God has ever allowed a nation to be afflicted with since gov- 
ernment on earth began ? You may call this free government, but 
it is such freedom, and no other, as of old was established at Baby- 
lon, at Susa, at Bactriana, or Persepolis. Its parallel is scarcely to 
be found when thus falsely understood, in any even the worst forms 
of civil polity in modern times. Sir, it is not so, such is not your 
Constitution, it is something else, something other and better than 
this. 

I have looked at this subject with a painful endeavor to come to 
the conclusion, if possible, that it was my duty, as a Senator of the 
United States, finding the country in w^ar, to "fight it out," as we 
say in the common and popular phrase of the times, to a just and 
honorable peace ! I could very easily concede that to be my duty if 



ON THE MEXICAN WAR. 285 

I found my country engaged in a just war— in a war necessary even 
to protect that fancied honor of which you talk so much. I then 
should have some apology in the judgment of my country, in the 
determination of my conscience, and in that appeal which you, and 
I, and all of us must soon be required to make before a tribunal, 
where this vaunted honor of the Republic, I fear me, will gain but 
little credit as a defense to any act we may perform here in the Sen- 
ate of the United States. 

But when I am asked to say whether I will prosecute a war, I 
cannot answer that question, yea or nay, until I have determined 
whether that was a necessary war ; and I cannot determine whether it 
was necessary until I know how it was that my country was involved 
m it And it is to that particular point, Mr. President, — without 
reading documents, but referring to a few facts which I understand 
not to be denied on either side of this chamber— that I wish to 
direct the attention of the American Senate, and so far as may be, 
that of any of the noble and honest-hearted constituents whom I 
represent here. I know, Mr. President, the responsibility which I 
assume in undertaking to determine that the President of the United 
States has done a great wrong to the country, whose honor and 
whose interest he was required to protect. I know the denuncia- 
tions which await every one who shall dare to put himself in opposi- 
tion to that high power — that idol god— which the people of this 
country have made to themselves and called a President. 

But it is my very humility which makes me bold. I know, sir, 
that he who was told in former time how to govern a turbulent peo- 
ple, was advised to cut off the tallest heads. Mine will escape ! 
Still, holding a seat here, Mr. President, and finding it written in the 
Constitution of my country that I had the power to grant to the 
President at his bidding, or not, as I pleased, men and money, I did 
conceive that it became my duty to ascertain whether the President's 
request was a reasonable one — whether the President wanted these 
men and this money for a proper and laudable purpose or not ; and 
with these old-fashioned ideas— quite as unpopular, I fear, with some 

on this side of the Chamber as we find them to be on the other I 

set myself to this painful investigation. I found not quite enough 
along with me to have saved the unrighteous city of old. 

There were not five of us, but only three ! And when these 
votes were called, and I was compelled to separate myself from 
almost all around me, I could have cried as did the man of Uz in his 



286 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

affliction in the elder time — "What time my friends wax warm they 
vanish, when it is hot they are consumed out of their places!" 

I could not leave the position in which it had pleased the State 
of Ohio to place me, and I returned again and again to the original 
and primary and important inquiry — how is it that my country is 
involved in this war? I looked to the President's account of it, and 
he tells me it was a war for the defense of the territory of the 
United States. I found it written in that message, Mr. President, 
that this war was not sought nor forced upon Mexico by the people of 
the United States. I shall make no question of history or the truth 
of history with my master, the commander-in-chief, upon that partic- 
ular proposition. On the contrary, I could verify every word that 
he thus utters. Sir, I know that the people of the United States nei- 
ther sought nor forced Mexico into this war, and yet I know that the 
President of the United States, with the command of your standing 
army, did seek that war, and that Jie forced the war upon Mexico. I 
am not about to afflict the Senate with a detail of testimony on that 
point. I will simply state facts which few, I trust, will be found to 
deny. 

One of the facts, Mr. President, is this: That in the year of 
grace, 1836, the battle of San Jacinto was fought. Does anybody 
deny that? No one here will doubt that fact. The result of that 
battle was that a certain district of country, calling itself Texas, 
declared itself a free and independent republic. I hope the Senate 
will pardon me for uttering a thought or two, which strikes me just 
now while I see the Senator from Texas, the leader of the men who 
achieved that victory, before me. I wish to say a word or two 
about the great glory, the historical renown, that is to come to the 
people of the United States by the victories which we shall obtain 
over the arms and forces of the Republic of Mexico. I suppose, 
Mr. President, like all other boys, in my early youth, when I had an 
opportunity of looking at a book called history, those which spoke 
of bloody battles and desolating wars were most likely to attract my 
attention ; and with very limited means of ascertaining that portion 
of the history of the human race, it nevertheless has impressed 
itself very vividly upon my mind that there have been great wars, 
and, as the old maxim has it, "many brave men before Agamem- 
non." 

Sir, the world's annals show very many ferocious sieges, and 
battles, and onslaughts before San Jacinto, Palo Alto or Monterey. 



ON THE MEXICAN WAR. 287 

Generals of bloody renown have frightened the nations before the 
revolt of Texas, or our invasion of Mexico ; and I suppose we 
Americans might properly claim some share in this martial reputa- 
tion, since it was won by our own kindred, men clearly descended 
from Noah, the great "propositus" of our family, with whom we all 
claim a very endearing relationship. But I confess, I have been 
somewhat surprised of late, that men, read in the history of man, 
who knew that war has been his trade for six thousand years 
(prompted, I imagine, by those "noble instincts" spoken of by the 
Senator from Michigan), who knew that the first man born of 
woman was a hero of the first magnitude, that he met his shepherd 
brother in deadly conflict, and most heroically beat out his brains 
with a club — I say, sir, I am somewhat puzzled when I hear those 
who knew all these things well, nevertheless shouting paeans of glory 
to the American name, for the few deeds of death which our noble 
little army in Mexico has as yet been able to achieve. 

But, sir, let me recur again to the battle of San Jacinto. The 
Senator from Texas [General Houston], now in his seat, com- 
manded there. His army consisted of about seven hundred and 
fifty men. These were collected from all parts of the United States, 
and from the population of Texas, then numbering about ten thou- 
sand souls. With this army, undisciplined, badly armed and indiffer- 
ently furnished in all respects, the Senator from Texas conquered a 
Mexican army of about 3,500 men; took their commander, Santa 
Anna, then President of Mexico, prisoner, with the whole of his 
forces. Texas declared her independence, and alone maintained it 
against the power of Mexico for seven years, and since that time has 
been a State under the shield of our protection. It is against this 
same Mexico that twenty millions of Anglo-Saxon Americans send 
forth their armies. The great North American Republic buckles on 
her armor, and her mighty bosom heaves with the "gandia ccrtam- 
mis" as she marches under her eagle banners to encounter a foe, 
who, ten years ago, was whipped by an army of seven hundred and 
fifty undisciplined militia, and bereft of a territory larger than the 
empire of France, which her conqueror held in her despite for seven 
years, and then quietly transferred her territory and power to you. 
Sir, if the joint armies of the United States and Texas are to acquire 
renown by vanquishing Mexico, what honors are too great to be 
denied to Texas for her victory over this Mexico ten years ago? If, 
by vanquishing such a foe, you are to win renown in war, what lau- 



288 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

rels should you not wreathe around the brows of those who fought 
at San Jacinto, especially when history tells of the killed and 
wounded in the latter fight, she records that just three were killed in 
mortal combat, while two died of their wounds "when the battle 
was done ! ! ! " Oh, Mr. President, does it indeed become this great 
Republic to cherish the heroic wish to measure arms with the long 
since conquered, distracted, anarchic and miserable Mexico? 

Mr. President, I trust we shall abandon the idea, the heathen, 
barbarian notion, that our true national glory is to be won, or 
retained, by military prowess or skill in the art of destroying life. 
And, while I cannot but lament, for the permanent and lasting 
renown of my country, that she should command the service of her 
children in what I must consider wanton, unprovoked, Jinnecessajy, 
and, therefore, unjust war, I can yield to the brave soldier, whose 
trade is war, and whose duty is obedience, the highest meed of 
praise for his courage, his enterprise and perpetual endurance of the 
fatigues and horrors of war. I know the gallant men who are 
engaged in fighting your battles possess personal bravery equal to 
any troops, in any land, anywhere engaged in the business of war. 
I do not believe we are less capable in the art of destruction than 
others, or less willing, on the slightest pretext, to unsheath the 
sword, and consider "revenge a virtue." I could wish, also, that 
your brave soldiers, while they bleed and die on the battle-field, 
might have (what in this war is impossible) the consolation to feel 
and know that their blood flowed in defense of a great right — that 
their lives were a meet sacrifice to an exalted principle. 

But, sir, I return to our relations with Mexico. Texas, I have 
shown, having won her independence, and torn from Mexico about 
one-fourth part of her territory, comes to the United States, sinks 
her national character into the less elevated, but more secure, posi- 
tion of 07ie of the United States of America. The revolt of Texas, 
her successful war with Mexico, and a consequent loss of a valuable 
province, all inured to the ultimate benefit of our Government and 
our country. While Mexico was weakened and humbled, we, in the 
same proportion, were strengthened and elevated. All this was 
done against the wish, the interest and the earnest remonstrance of 
Mexico. 

Every one can feel, if he will examine himself for a moment, 
what must have been the mingled emotions of pride, humiliation and 
bitter indignation, which raged in the bosoms of the Mexican peo- 



ON THE MEXICAN WAR. 289 

pie, when they saw one of their fairest provinces torn from them by 
a revolution, moved by a foreign people ; and that province, by our 
act and our consent, annexed to the already enormous expanse of 
our territory. It is idle, Mr. President, to suppose that the Mexican 
people would not feel as deeply for the dismemberment and disgrace 
of their country as you would for the dismemberment of this Union 
of ours. Sir, there is not a race, nor tribe, nor people on the earth, 
who have an organized social or political existence, who have clung 
with more obstinate affection to every inch of soil they could call 
their own, than this very Spanish, this Mexican, this Indian race, in 
that country. So strong and deep is this sentiment in the heart of 
that half-savage, half-civilized race, that it has become not merely an 
opinion, a principle, but with them an unreasoning fanaticism. So 
radically deep and strong has this idea rooted itself into the Mexican 
mind, that I learn recently it has been made a part of the new funda- 
mental law, that not an inch of Mexican soil shall ever be alienated 
to a foreign power; that her territory shall remain entire as long as 
her republic endures; that, if one of her limbs be forcibly severed 
from her, death shall ensue, unless that limb shall be re-united to the 
parent trunk. With such a people, not like you, as you fondly, and 
I fear, vainly boast yourselves, a highly-civilized, reasoning, and 
philosophical race, but a people who upon the fierce barbarism of 
the old age have ingrafted the holy sentiments of patriotism of a 
later birth ; with just such a people, the pride of independence and 
the love of country combine to inflame and sublimate patriotic 
attachment into a feeling dearer than life — stronger than death. 

What were the sentiments of such a people toward us when 
they learned that, at the battle of San Jacinto, there were only sev- 
enty-five men of their own country out of the seven hundred and 
fifty who conquered them on that day, and that every other man of 
that conquering army who fought that battle, and dismembered their 
republic of one-fourth part of its territory, had but recently gone 
there from this country, was fed by our people, and armed and 
equipped in the United Stated to do that very deed. 

I do not say that Mexico had a right to make war upon us be- 
cause our citizens chose to seek their fortunes in the fields of Texas. 
I do not say she had a right to treat you as a bellgerent power be- 
cause you permitted your citizens to march in battalions and regiments 
from your shores, for the avowed purpose of insurrectionary war in 
Texas — but I was not alone at the time in expressing my astonish- 
20 



290 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

ment that all this did not work an open rupture between the two 
Republics at that time. We all remember your proclamations of 
neutrality — we know that in defiance of these, your citizens armed 
themselves and engaged in the Texan revolt; and it is true that 
without such aid Texas would this day have been, as she then was, 
an integral portion of the Mexican republic. Sir, Mexicans knew 
this then, they knew it when, seven years after, you coolly took 
this province under your protection and made it your own. Do you 
wonder, therefore, after all this, that when Texas did thus forcibly 
pass away from them and come to us, that prejudice amounting to 
hate, resentment implacable as revenge toward us, should seize and 
possess and madden the entire population of a country thus weak- 
ened, humbled, contemned ? 

Mr. President, how would the fire of indignation have burned 
in every bosom here if the government of Canada, with the conniv- 
ance of the Crown of England, had permitted its people to arm 
themselves, or it might be, had allowed its regiments of trained 
mercenary troops stationed there to invade New York and excite her 
to revolt, telling them that the Crown of England was the natural 
and paternal ruler of any people desiring to be free and happy — 
that your Government was weak, factious, oppressive — that man 
withered under its baleful influence — that your stars and stripes were 
only emblems of degradation and symbols of faction — that England's 
lion, rampant on his field of gold, was the appropriate emblem of 
power and symbol of national glory — and they succeeded in alienat- 
ing the weak or wicked of your people from you — should we not 
then have waged exterminating war upon England, in every quar- 
ter of the globe, where her people were to be found? 

If, sir, I say, old mother England had sent her children forward 
to you with such a purpose and message as that, and had severed 
the State of New York from you, and then, for some difificulty about 
the boundary along between it and Pennsylvania and New Jersey, 
running up some little tide creek here, and going off a little degree 
or two there, should have said, "We have a dispute about this 
boundary ; we have some forty thousand regular troops planted upon 
the boundary, and I wish you to understand that I am very strong 
— that I have not only thirty millions of people upon the soil of 
Great Britain that own my sovereign sway, but away upon the other 
side of the globe, right under you, there the lion of England com- 
mands the obedience of a hundred and twenty millions more. It 



ON THE MEXICAN WAR. 291 

becomes you, straggling Democrats, here in this new world, to be a 
little careful how you treat me. You are not Celts exactly — nor are 
you quite Anglo Saxons ; but you are a degenerate, an alien, a sort 
of bastard race. I have taken your New York ; I will have your 
Massachusetts." And all this is submitted to the American Senate, 
and we are gravely discussing what ought to be done. Would we 
be likely to ratify a treaty between New York and the Crown of 
England, permitting New York to become a part of the colonial 
possessions of England? 

I should like to hear my colleague [Mr. Allen] speak on such 
a question as that. I should like to hear the voice of this Democrat 
that you talk about, called upon to utter its tones on a question like 
that. If he who last year was so pained lest an American citizen 
away — God knows where! in some latitude beyond the Rocky 
Mountains, should be obedient to British laws — if he whose patriotic 
and Republican apprehension was so painfully excited lest the right 
of habeas corpus and trial by jury, which every Englishman carries in 
his pocket wherever he goes, should be made to bear upon an Amer- 
ican citizen — were called upon to speak upon such a proposition as 
that which I have supposed, I should certainly like to hear how he 
would treat it. Yet, the question being reversed, that is precisely 
the condition in which Mexico stood toward you after San Jacinto 
was fought, and on the day Texas was annexed. 

Your people did go to Texas. I remember it well. They 
went to Texas to fight for their rights. They could not fight for 
them in their own country. Well, they fought for their rights. 
They conquered them! They "conquered a peace!" They were 
your citizens — not Mexicans. They were recent emigrants to that 
country. They went there for the very purpose of seizing on that 
country and making it a free and independent republic, with a view, 
as some of them said, of bringing it into the American Confederacy 
in due time. Is this poor Celtic brother of yours in Mexico — is the 
Mexican man sunk so low that he cannot hear what fills the mouth 
and ear of rumor all over this country? He knows that this was the 
settled purpose of some of your people. He knows that your ava- 
rice had fixed its eagle glance on these rich acres in Mexico, and that 
your proud power counted the number that could be brought against 
you, and that your avarice and your power together marched on to 
the subjugation of the third or fourth part of the Republic of Mex- 
ico, and took it from her. We knew this, and knowing it, what 



292 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

should have been the feehng and sentiment in the mind of the 
President of the United States toward such a people — a people at 
least in their own opinion so deeply injured by us as were these 
Mexicans, 

The Republic of Texas comes under the Government of the 
United States, and it happens that the minister resident at your court 
— and it is a pretty respectable court, Mr. President, — we have 
something of a king — not for life, it is true, but a quadrennial sort 
of a monarch, who does very much as he pleases — the minister resi- 
dent at that court of yours stated at the time that this revolted 
province of Texas was claimed by Mexico, and that if you received 
it as one of the sovereign States of this Union, right or wrong, it 
was impossible to reason with his people about it — they would con- 
sider it as an act of hostility. Did you consult the national feeling 
of Mexico then? 

The President has now to deal with a people thus humbled, thus 
irritated. It was his duty to concede much to Mexico; everything 
but his country's honor or her rights. Was this done? Not at alH 
Mexico and her minister were alike spurned as weak and trivial 
things, whose complaints you would not hear or heed ; and when she 
humbly implored you not to take this province — declared that it 
might disturb the peace subsisting between us — you were still inex- 
orable. During this time, she was forcing loans from her citizens to 
pay the debt she owed yours, fulfilling her treaties with you by pain- 
ful exactions from her own people. She begged of you to let Texas 
alone. If she were independent, let her enjoy her independence ; if 
free, let her revel in her new-born liberty, in defiance of Mexico, as 
she alleged she would and . could. Your stern reply was, No ! we 
will, at your expense, strengthen our own arm, by uniting to our- 
selves that which has been severed from you by our citizens ; we will 
take Texas ; we will throw the shield of our Constitution over her 
rights, and the sword of our power shall gleam like that at Eden, 
"turning every way," to guard her against further attack. 

Her minister, his remonstrance failing, leaves you. He tells 
you that he cannot remain, because you had created, by this act, 
hostile relations with his government. At last you are informed that 
Mexico will receive a commission to treat of this Texan boundary, 
if you will condescend to negotiate. Instead of sending a commis- 
sioner to treat of tJiat, the only difficult question between the two 
Republics, you send a full minister, and require that he shall be 



ON THE MEXICAN WAR. 293 

received as such. If he could not be styled Minister Plenipotentiary 
and so accredited, why then we must fight, and not negotiate for a 
boundary. The then Mexican president, the representative of some 
faction then only, was tottering to his fall. His minister besought 
Mr. Slidell not to press his reception then. He was told that the 
excited feelings of the Mexican people were such that he must delay 
for a time. To this petition what answer is returned? You shall 
receive me now ; you shall receive me as minister, and not as com- 
missioner; you shall receive me as though the most pacific relations 
existed between the two countries. T/ms, and not otherwise, shall it 
be. Such was the haughty, imperious tone of Mr. Slidell, and he 
acted up only to the spirit of his instructions. Let any one peruse 
the correspondence I have referred to, and he will see that I have 
truly represented its spirit, be its letter what it may. This is done 
under the instructions of a cabinet here, who represented themselves 
in our public documents, as sighing, panting for peace; as desiring, 
above all things, to treat these distracted, contemned Mexicans in 
such a way, that not the shadow of a complaint against us shall be 
seen. From this correspondence it is perfectly clear, that if Mr. 
Slidell had been sent in the less ostentatious character of conwiis- 
swncr, to treat of the Texan boundary, that treaties and not bullets 
would have adjusted the question. But this was not agreeable to the 
lofty conceptions of the President. He preferred a vigorous war to 
the tame process of peaceful adjustment. He now throws down the 
pen of the diplomat, and grasps the sword of the warrior. Your 
army, with brave old "Rough and Ready" at its head, is ordered to 
pass the Nueces, and advance to the east bank of the Rio Grande. 
There, sir, between these two rivers, lies that slip of territory, that 
chapparal thicket, interspersed with Mexican haciendas, out of which 
this wasteful, desolating war arose. Was this territory beyond the 
river Nueces in the State of Texas? 

Now I have said, that I would not state any disputable fact. It 
is known to every man who has looked into this subject, that a revo- 
lutionary government can claim no jurisdiction anywhere when it has 
not defined and exercised its power with the sword. It was utterly 
indifferent to Mexico and the world what legislative enactments 
Texas made. She extended her revolutionary government and her 
revolutionary dominion not one inch beyond the extent to which she 
had carried the power of Texas in opposition to the power of 
Mexico. 



294 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

It is therefore a mere question of fact; and how will it be 
pretended that that country, lying between the Nueces and the Del 
Norte, to which your army was ordered, and of which it took pos- 
session, was subject to Texan law and not Mexican law ? What did 
your general find there? What did he write home? Do you hear 
of any trial by jury on the east bank of the Rio Grande — of Anglo 
Saxons making cotton there with their negroes? No! You hear of 
Mexicans residing peacefully there, but fleeing from their cotton- 
fields at the approach of your army — no slaves, for it had been a 
decree of the Mexican government, years ago, that no slaves should 
exist there. If there were a Texan population on the east bank of 
the Rio Grande, why did not General Taylor hear something of 
those Texans hailing the advent of the American army, coming to 
protect them from the ravages of the Mexicans, and the more mur- 
derous onslaughts of the neighboring savages? 

Do you hear anything of that ? No ! On the contrary, the 
population fled at the approach of your army. In God's name, I 
wish to know if it has come to this, that when an American army 
goes to protect American citizens on American territory, they flee 
from it as if from the most barbarous enemy? Yet such is the ridic- 
ulous assumption of those who pretend that, on the east bank of the 
Rio Grande, where your arms took possession, there were Texan 
population, Texan power, Texan laws, and American United States 
power and law! No, Mr. President, when I see that stated in an 
Executive document, written by the finger of a President of the 
United States, and when you read in those documents, with which 
your tables groan, the veracious account of that noble old General 
Taylor, of his reception in that country, and of those men — to use 
the language of one of his officers — fleeing before the invaders ; 
when you compare these two documents together, is it not a biting 
sarcasm upon the sincerity of public men — a bitter satire upon the 
gravity of all public affairs ? 

Can it be, Mr. President, that the honest, generous. Christian 
people of the United States will give contenance to this egregious, 
palpable misrepresentation of fact — this bold falsification of history? 
Shall it be written down in your public annals, when the world look- 
ing on and you yourselves know, that Mexico, and not Texas, pos- 
sessed this territory to which your armies marched? As Mexico 
had never been dispossessed by Texan power, neither Texas nor 
your Government had any more claim to it than you now have to 



ON THE MEXICAN WAR. 295 

California, that other possession of Mexico over which your all- 
grasping avarice has already extended its remorseless dominion. 

Mr. President, there is absent to-day a Senator from the other 
side of the House whose presence would afford me, as it always 
does, but particularly on this occasion, a most singular gratification. 
I allude to the Senator from Missouri who sits furthest from me 
(Mr. Benton). I remember, Mr. President, he arose in this body 
and performed a great act of justice to himself and to his country — 
of justice to mankind, for all men are interested in the truths of his- 
tory — when he declared it to be his purpose, for the sake of the 
truth of history, to set right some gentlemen, on the other side of 
the House, in respect to the territory of Oregon, which then threat- 
ened to disturb the peace of this Republic with the kingdom of 
Great Britain. I wish it had pleased him to have performed the 
same good offices on this occasion. 

I wish it had been so, if he could have found it consonant with 
his duty to his country, that now, while engaged with an enemy 
whom we have no reason to fear, as being ever able to check our 
progress or disturb our internal peace, for the sake of justice, as 
then he did for the sake of justice and the interest and peace of those 
two countries, England and America, he had come forward to settle 
the truth of history in respect to the territorial boundary of Texas, 
which our President said was the Rio Bravo — the "Rio del Norte," 
as it is sometimes called. I express this wish for no purpose of 
taunting the Senator from Missouri, or leading him to believe that I 
would draw his name into the discussion for any other than the most 
sacred purposes which can animate the human bosom — that of hav- 
ing truth established ; for I really believe that that is truth which the 
Senator from Michigan stated yesterday, that the worst said in the 
Senate is, that much might be said on both sides. I cannot view it 
in that way. Much may be said, much talk may be had on both 
sides on any question, but that this is a disputable matter about 
which a man could apply his mind for an hour and still be in doubt, 
is to me an inscrutable mystery. 

I wish to invoke the authority of the Senator from Missouri. 
When about to receive Texas into the United States he offered a 
resolution to this effect : 

"That the incorporation of the left bank of the Rio del Norte (Rio Grande) into 
the American Union, by virtue of a treaty with Texas, comprehending, as the said in- 
corporation would do, a part of the Mexican departments of New Mexico, Chihuahua, 



296 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

Coahuila and Tamaulipas, WOULD BE AN ACT OF DIRECT AGGRESSION ON 
MEXICO, for all the consequences of which the United States would stand responsible." 

I beg, Mr. President, to add to this another authority which I 
am sure will not be contradicted by any calling themselves Democrats. 
In the summer of 1844, Mr. Silas Wright, in an elaborate address 
delivered at Watertown, N. Y., said: 

" There is another subject on which I feel bound to speak a word ; I allude to the 
proposition to annex Texas to the territory of this republic. I felt it my duty to vote 
as Senator, and did vote against the ratification of the treaty for the annexation. I 
believed that the treaty, from the boundaries that must be implied from it, if Mexico 
would not treat with us, embraced a country to which Texas had no claim — over which 
she had never asserted jurisdiction, and which she had no right to cede. On this point 
I should give a brief explanation. 

" The treaty ceded Texas by name without an effort to describe a boundary. The 
Congress of Texas had passed an act declaring, by metes and bounds, what was Texas 
within their power and jurisdiction. It appeared to me then, if Mexico should tell us, 
'We don't know you, we have no treaty to make with you,' and we were left to take 
possession by force, we must take the country as Texas had ceded it to us ; and in doing 
that, or forfeiting our own honor, we must do injustice to Mexico, and take a large 
portion of New Mexico, the people of which have never been under the jurisdiction of 
Texas ; this, to me, was an insurmountable barrier — I could not place the country in 
that position." 

How did your officers consider this question? While in camp 
opposite to Matamoras, being then on the left bank of the Rio 
Grande, between the latter river and the Nueces, a most respectable 
officer writes thus to his friend in New York : 

"Camp opposite Matamoras, April 19, 1846. 

" Our situation here is an extraordinary one. Right in the enemy's country, 
actually occupying their corn and cotton-fields, the people of the soil leaving their 
homes, and we, with a small handful of men, marching, with colors flying and drums 
beating, right under the guns of one of their principal cities, displaying the star- 
spangled banner, as if in defiance, under their very nose, and they, with an army twice 
our size at least, sit quietly down, and make not the least resistance, not the first effort 
to drive the invaders off". There is no parallel to it." 

Sir, did this officer consider himself in Texas? Were they our 
own Texan citizens, who, in the language of the letter, "■did 7iot 
make the first effort to drive the invaders offV If it had been Texas 
there, would that State consider it i?ivasion, or her people fly fro7>i 
your standard? " The people of the soil leaiing their homes T Who 
were those "people of the soil?" Sir, they were Mexicans, never con- 
quered by Texas, and never subject to her laws, and therefore never 
transferred by annexation to your dominion ; and therefore, lastly, 
your army, by order of the President, without the consent or advice 



ON THE MEXICAN WAR. 297 

of Congress, made war on Mexico, by invading her territory, in 
April, 1846. 

Mr. President, the Senator from Missouri was right. "The in- 
corporation of the left bank of the Rio Grande into the American 
Union," was ''an act of direct aggression on Mexico," as his resolu- 
tion most truthfully alleged. We, or at least the President, has at- 
tempted to incorporate the left bank of the Rio del Norte, or the Rio 
Grande, into the Union, and the consequence, the legitimate conse- 
quence, war, has come upon us. The President, in his message, as- 
serts the boundary of Texas to be the Rio Grande. The Senator 
from Missouri asserts the left bank of that river to be Mexican terri- 
tory. Sir, it is not for me, who stand here an humble man, who 
pretend not to be one of those Pharisees who know all the law and 
obey it, but who, like the poor publican, would stand afar off and 
smite my breast, and say God be merciful to me, a poor Whig. 
When the anointed high-priests in the Temple of Democracy differ on 
a point of fact, it is not for me to decide between them. Is it for me 
to say that the Senator from Missouri was ignorant and the President 
omniscient? Is it for me to say that the President was right and the 
Senator from Missouri wrong? If it were true that Texan laws had 
been, since 1836, as the President's action seems to declare, how 
happened it that when General Taylor went to Point Isabel, the peo- 
ple set fire to their houses and fled the place ? And how did it hap- 
pen that there was a custom-house there, there, in Texas, as you now 
allege? A Mexican custom-house in Texas, where, ever since 1836, 
and for one whole year after the State of Texas became yours, a 
Mexican officer collected taxes of all who traded there, and paid 
these duties into the Mexican treasury! Sir, is it credible that this 
State of Texas allowed Mexican laws and Mexican power to exist 
within her borders for seven years after her independence ? I should 
think a people so prompt to fight for their rights might have burned 
some powder for the expulsion of Mexican usurpers from Texan ter- 
ritory. Sir, the history of this country is full of anomalies and con- 
tradictions. What a patriotic, harmonious people ! When Taylor 
comes to protect them they fire their dwellings and fly ! When you 
come in peace, bristling in arms for protection only — your eagle 
spreading its wings to shield from harm all American citizens — what 
then happens? Why, according to your own account, these Anglo- 
Saxon republicans are so terrified at the sight of their country's flag, 
that they abandon their homes, and retreat before your army, as if 



298 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

some Nomad tribe had wandered thither to enslave their families and 
plunder their estates! 

All this mass of undeniable fact, known even to the careless 
reader of the public prints, is so utterly at war with the studiously- 
contrived statements in your cabinet documents, that I do not won- 
der at all that an amiable national pride, however misplaced here, 
has prevented hitherto a thorough and fearless investigation of their 
truth. Nor, sir, would I probe this feculent mass of misrepresenta- 
tion, had I not been compelled to it in defense of votes which I was 
obliged to record here, within the last ten days. Sir, with my opin- 
ions as to facts connected with this subject, and my deductions, un- 
avoidable, from them, I should have been unworthy the high-souled 
State I represent, had I voted men and money to prosecute further 
a war commenced, as it now appears, in aggression, and carried on 
by repetition only of the original wrong. Am I mistaken in this? 
If I am, I shall hold him the dearest friend I can own, in any relation 
of life, who shall show me my error. If I am wrong in this ques- 
tion of fact, show me how I err, and gladly will I retrace my steps; 
satisfy me that my country was in peaceful and rightful possession 
between the Nueces and Rio Grande when General Taylor's army 
was ordered there; show me that at Palo Alto and Resaca de las 
Palmas blood was shed on American soil in American possession, 
and then, for the defense of that possession, I will vote away the last 
dollar that power can wring from the people, and send every man 
able to bear a musket to the ranks of war. But until I shall be thus 
convinced, duty to myself, to truth, to conscience, to public justice, 
requires that I persist in every lawful opposition to this war. 

While the American President can command the army, thank 
Heaven I can command the purse. While the President, under the 
penalty of death, can command your officers to proceed, I can tell 
them to come back, or the President can supply them as he may. 
He shall have no funds from me in the prosecution of a war which I 
cannot approve. That I conceive to be the duty of a Senator. I 
am not mistaken in that. If it be my duty to grant whatever the 
President demands, for what am I here ? Have I no will upon the 
subject? Is it not placed at my discretion, understanding, judg- 
ment? Have an American Senate and House of Representatives 
nothing to do but obey the bidding of the President, as the army he 
commands is compelled to obey under penalty of death ? No ! The 



ON THE MEXICAN WAR. 299 

representatives of the sovereign people and sovereign States were 
never elected for such purposes as that. 

Have Senators reflected on the great power which the command 
of armies in war confers upon any one, but especially on him who is 
at once the civil and military chief of the government? It is very 
well that we should look back to see how the friends of popular 
rights regarded this subject in former times. Prior to the revolution 
of 1688, in England, all grants of money by Parliament were gen- 
eral. Specific appropriations before that period were unknown. 
The king could, out of the general revenues, appropriate any or all 
of them to any war or other object, as best suited his own unre- 
strained wishes. Hence, in the last struggle with the first Charles, 
the Parliament insisted that he should yield up the command of the 
army raised to quell the Irish rebellion to such person as Parliament 
should choose. The men of that day saw that with the unrestricted 
control of revenue, and the power to name the commander of the 
army, the king was master of the liberties of the people. Where- 
fore Charles, after he had yielded up almost every other kingly pre- 
rogative, was (in order to secure Parliament and the people against 
military rule ) required to give up the command of the forces. It was 
his refusal to do this that brought his head to the block. "Give up 
the command of the army !" was the last imperative demand of the 
foes of arbitrary power then. What was the reply of that unhappy 
representative of the doomed race of the Stuarts? "Not for an hour, 
by God !" was the stern answer. Wentworth had always advised his 
royal master never to yield up the right to command the army ; such, 
too, was the counsel of the queen, whose notions of kingly power 
were all fashioned after the most despotic models. This power over 
the army by our Constitution is conceded to our king. Give him 
money at his will, as we are told we must, and you have set up in 
this Republic just such a tyrant as him against whom the friends of 
English liberty were compelled to wage war. It was a hard neces- 
sity, but still it was demanded as the only security for any reasona- 
ble measure of pubhc liberty. Such men as Holt and Somers had 
not yet taught the people of England the secret of controlling arbi- 
trary power by specific appropriations of money, and withholding 
these, when the king proclaimed his intention to use the grant for 
any purpose not approved by the Commons, the true representatives 
of popular rights in England. 

When, in 1688, this doctrine of specific appropriations became 



300 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

a part of the British constitution, the King could safely be trusted 
with the control of the army. If war is made there by the Crown, 
and the Commons do not approve of it, refusal to grant supplies is 
the easy remedy — one, too, which renders it impossible for a king of 
England to carry forward any war which may be displeasing to the 
English people. Yes, sir, in England, since 1688, it has not been 
in the power of a British sovereign to do that, which in your boasted 
Republic, an American president, under the auspices of what you 
call Democracy, has done — make war, without consent of the legis- 
lative power. In England, supplies are at once refused, if Parlia- 
ment does not approve the objects of the war, Here, we are told, 
we must not look to the objects of the war, being in the zvar — made 
by the President — we must help him to fight it out, should it even 
please him to carry it to the utter extermination of the Mexican 
race. Sir, I believe it must proceed to this shocking extreme, if 
you are, by war, to "conquer a peace." Here, then, is your condi- 
tion. The President involves you in war without your consent. 
Being in such a war, it is demanded as a duty, that we grant men 
and money to carry it on. The President tells us he shall prosecute 
this war, till Mexico pays us, or agrees to pay us, all its expenses. 
I am not willing to scourge Mexico thus ; and the only means left me 
is to say to the commander-in-chief, "Call home your army, I will 
feed and clothe it no longer; you have whipped Mexico into three 
pitched battles,, this is revenge enough; this is punishment enough." 
The President has said he does not expect to hold Mexican ter- 
ritory by conquest. Why then conquer it? Why waste thousands 
of lives and millions of money fortifying towns and creating govern- 
ments, if, at the end of the war, you retire from the graves of your 
soldiers and the desolated country of your foes, only to get money 
from Mexico for the expense of all your toil and sacrifice? Who 
ever heard, since Christianity was propagated among men, of a 
nation taxing its people, enlisting its young men and marching off 
two thousand miles to fight a people merely to be paid for it in 
money? What is this but hunting a market for blood, selling the 
lives of your young men, marching them in regiments to be slaugh- 
tered and paid for, like oxen and brute beasts? Sir, this is, when 
stripped naked, that atrocious idea first promulgated in the Presi- 
dent's message, and now advocated here, of fighting on till we can 
get our indemnity for the past as well as the present slaughter. We 
have chastised Mexico, and if it were worth while to do so, we have, 



ON THE MEXICAN WAR. 301 

I dare say, satisfied the world that we can fight. What now? Why 
the mothers of America are asked to send another of their sons to 
blow out the brains of Mexicans because they refuse to pay the price 
of the first who fell there, fighting for glory ! And what if the sec- 
ond fall, too? The Executive, the parental reply, is, "we shall have 
him paid for, we shall get full indemnity!" Sir, I have no patience 
with this flagitious notion of fighting for indemnity, and this under 
the equally absurd and hypocritical pretense of securing an honora- 
ble peace. An honorable peace ! If you have accomplished the 
objects of the war ( if indeed you had an object which you dare to 
avow), cease to fight, and you will have peace. Conquer your 
insane love of false glory, and you will "conquer a peace." Sir, if 
your commander-in-chief will not do this, I will endeavor to compel 
him, and as I find no other means, I shall refuse supplies — without 
the money of the people, he cannot go further. He asks me for 
that money; I wish him to bring your armies home, to cease shed- 
ding blood for money ; if he refuses, I will refuse supplies, and then 
I know he must, he will cease his further sale of the lives of my 
countrymen. May we not, ought we not now to do this? I can 
hear no reason why we should not, except this: It is said that we 
are in war, wrongfully it may be, but, being in, the President is 
responsible, and we must give him the means he requires ! He 
responsible ! Sir, we, we are responsible, if having the power to 
stay this plague, we refuse to do so. When it shall be so — when 
the American Senate and the American House of Representatives 
can stoop from their high position, and yield a dumb compliance 
with the behests of a president who is, for the time being, com- 
mander of your army ; when they will open the treasury with one 
hand, and the veins of all the soldiers in the land with the other, 
moely because the President commands, then, sir, it matters little how 
soon some Cromwell shall come into this Hall and say, "the Lord 
hath no further need of you here." When we fail to do the work, 
"whereunto we were sent," we shall be, we ought to be, removed, 
and give place to others who will. The fate of the barren fig-tree 
will be ours — Christ cursed it and it withered. 

Mr. President, I dismiss this branch of the subject, and beg the 
indulgence of the Senate to some reflections on the particular bill 
now under consideration. I voted for a bill somewhat like the pres- 
ent at the last session — our army was then in the neighborhood of 
our line. I then hoped that the President did sincerely desire a 



302 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

peace. Our army had not then penetrated far into Mexico and I 
did hope that with the two milHons then proposed, we might get 
peace, and avoid the slaughter, the shame, the crime, of an aggress- 
ive, unprovoked war. But now you have overrun half of Mexico, 
you have exasperated and irritated her people, you claim indemnity 
for all expenses incurred in doing this mischief, and boldly ask her 
to give up New Mexico and California ; and, as a bribe to her patriot- 
ism, seizing on her property, you offer three millions to pay the sol- 
diers she has called out to repel your invasion, on condition that she 
will give up to you at least one-third of her whole territory. This is 
the modest — I should say, the monstrous — proposition now before 
us, as explained by the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign 
Relations [Mr. Sevier], who reported the bill. I cannot now give 
my assent to this. 

But, sir, I do not believe you will succeed. I am not informed 
of your prospects of success with this measure of peace. The 
Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Relations tells us that he has 
every reason to believe that peace can be obtained if we grant this 
appropriation. What reason have you, Mr. Chairman, for that opin- 
ion? "Facts which I cannot disclose to you — correspondence which 
it would be improper to name here — facts which I know, but which 
you are not permitted to know, have satisfied the committee, that 
peace may be purchased, if you will but grant these three millions 
of dollars." Now, Mr. President, I wish to know if I am required 
to act upon such opinions of the Chairman of the Committee on 
Foreign Relations, formed upon facts which he refuses to disclose to 
me? No! I must know the facts before I can form my judgment. 
But I am to take it for granted that there must be some prospect of 
an end to this dreadful war — for it is a dreadful war, being, as I 
believe in my conscience it is, an unjust war. Is it possible that for 
three millions you can purchase a peace with Mexico? How? By 
the purchase of California? Mr. President, I know not what facts 
the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs may have had 
access to. I know not what secret agents have been whispering into 
the ears of the authorities of Mexico ; but of one thing I am certain 
that by a cession of California and New Mexico you never can pur- 
chase a peace with her. 

You may wrest provinces from Mexico by war — you may hold 
them by the right of the strongest — you may rob her, but a treaty 
of peace to that effect with the people of Mexico, legitimately and 



ON THE MEXICAN WAR. 303 

freely made, you never will have ! I thank God that it is so, as well 
for the sake of the Mexican people as ourselves, for, unlike the Sen- 
ator from Alabama [Mr. Bagby], I do not value the life of a citizen 
of the United States above the lives of a hundred thousand Mexican 
women and children — a rather cold sort of philanthropy, in my 
judgment. For the sake of Mexico then, as well as our own coun- 
try, I rejoice that it is an impossibility, that you can obtain by treaty 
from her those territories, under the existing state of things. 

I am somewhat at a loss to know, on what plan of operations 
gentlemen having charge of this war intend to proceed. We hear 
much said of the terror of your arms. The affrighted Mexican, it is 
said, when you shall have drenched his country in blood, will sue 
for peace, and thus you will indeed "conquer peace." This is the 
heroic and savage tone in which we have heretofore been lectured by 
our friends on the other side of the chamber, especially by the Sena- 
tor from Michigan [General Cass]. But suddenly the Chairman of 
the Committee on Foreign Relations comes to us with a smooth 
phrase of diplomacy, made potent by the gentle suasion of gold. 
The Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs calls for thirty 
millions of money and ten thousand regular troops; these, we are 
assured, shall "conquer peace," if the obstinate Celt refuses to treat 
till we shall whip him in another field of blood. What a delightful 
scene in the nineteenth century of the Christian era ? What an inter- 
esting sight to see these two representatives of war and peace mov- 
ing in grand procession through the halls of the Montezumas ! The 
Senator from Michigan [General Cass], red with the blood of recent 
slaughter, the gory spear of Achilles in his hand and the hoarse 
clarion of war in his mouth, blowing a blast " so loud and deep " 
that the sleeping echoes of the lofty Cordilleras start from their cav- 
erns and return the sound, till every ear from Panama to Santa Fe is 
deafened with the roar. By his side, with "modest mien and down- 
cast look," comes the Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Sevier], covered 
from head to foot with a gorgeous robe, glittering and embossed 
with three millions of shining gold, putting to shame "the wealth of 
Ormus or of Ind." The olive of Minerva graces his brow; in his 
right hand is the delicate rebec, from which are breathed, in Lydian 
measure, notes "that tell of naught but love and peace." I fear 
very much you will scarcely be able to explain to the simple, savage 
mind of the half-civilized Mexicans, the puzzling dualism of this 
scene, at once gorgeous and grotesque. Sir I scarcely understand 



304 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

the meaning of all this myself. If we are to vindicate our 
rights by battles — in bloody fields of war — let us do it. If that is 
not the plan, why then let us call back our armies into our own terri- 
tory, and propose a treaty with Mexico, based upon the proposition 
that money is better for her and land is better for us. Thus we can 
treat Mexico like an equal and do honor to ourselves. But what is 
it you ask ? You have taken from Mexico one-fourth of her terri- 
tory, and you now propose to run a line comprehending about 
another third, and for what? I ask, Mr, President, for what? What 
has Mexico got from you, for parting with two-thirds of her domain? 
She has given you ample redress for every injury of which you have 
complained. She has submitted to the award of your commissioners, 
and up to the time of the rupture .with Texas, faithfully paid it. 
And for all that she has lost ( not through or by you, but which loss 
has been your gain), what requital do we, her strong, rich, robust 
neighbor, make? Do we send our missionaries there "to point the 
way to heaven?" Or do we send the schoolmasters to pour daylight 
into her dark places, to aid her infant strength to conquer freedom 
and reap the fruit of the independence herself alone had won? No, 
no, none of this do we. But we send regiments, storm towns, and 
our colonels prate of liberty in the midst of the solitudes their rav- 
ages have made. They proclaim the empty forms of social compact 
to a people bleeding and maimed with wounds received in defending 
their hearth-stones against the invasion of these very men who shoot 
them down, and then exhort them to be free. Your chaplains of the 
navy throw aside the New Testament and seize a bill of rights. The 
Rev. Don Walter Colton, I see, abandons the Sermon on the Mount, 
and betakes himself to Blackstone and Kent, and is elected a Justice 
of the Peace ! He takes military possession of some town in Cali- 
fornia, and instead of teaching the plan of the atonement and the 
way of salvation to the poor, ignorant Celt, he presents Colt's pistol 
to his ear, and calls on him to take "trial by jury and habeas corpus,'" 
or nine bullets in his head. Oh! Mr. President, are you not the 
lights of the earth, if not its salt? You, you are indeed opening the 
eyes of the blind in Mexico, with a most emphatic and exoteric 
power. Sir, if all this were not a sad, mournful truth, it would be 
the very "ne plus ultra" of the ridiculous. 

But, sir, let us see what, as the Chairman of the Committee of 
Foreign Relations explains it, we are to get by the combined pro- 
cesses of conquest and treaty. 



ON THE MEXICAN WAR. 305 

What is the territory, Mr. President, which you propose to 
wrest from Mexico? It is consecrated to the heart of the Mexican 
by many a well-fought battle, with his old Castilian master. His 
Bunker Hills, and Saratogas, and Yorktowns are there. The Mexi- 
can can say, "There I bled for liberty! and shall I surrender that 
consecrated home of my affections to the Anglo-Saxon invaders? 
What do they want with it ? They have Texas already. They have 
possessed themselves of the territory between the Nueces and the 
Rio Grande. What else do they want? To what shall I point my 
children as memorials of that independence which I bequeath to 
them, when those battle-fields shall have passed from my posses- 
sion?" 

Sir, had one come and demanded Bunker Hill of the people of 
Massachusetts, had England's lion ever showed himself there, is there 
a man over thirteen, and under ninety who would not have been 
ready to meet him — is there a river on this continent that would not 
have run red with blood — is there a field but would have been piled 
high with the unburied bones of slaughtered Americans before these 
consecrated battle-fields of liberty should have been wrested 
from us? But this same American goes into a sister republic, and 
says to poor, weak Mexico, "Give up your territory — you are 
unworthy to possess it — I have got one-half already — all I ask of 
you is to give up the other!" England might as well, in the circum- 
stances I have described, have come and demanded of us, "Give up 
the Atlantic slope — give up this trifling territory from the Alleghany 
mountains to the sea ; it is only from Maine to St. Mary's — only 
about one-third of your Republic, and the least interesting portion 
of it." What would be the response? They would say, we must 
give this up to John Bull. Why? "He wants room." The Sena- 
tor from Michigan says he must have this. Why, my worthy Chris- 
tian brother, on what principle of justice? "I want room!" 

Sir, look at this pretense of want of room. With twenty mill- 
ions of people, you have about one thousand millions of acres of land, 
inviting settlement by every conceivable argument — bringing them 
down to a quarter of a dollar an acre, and allowing every man to 
squat where he pleases. But the Senator from Michigan says we will 
be two hundred millions in a few years, and we want room. If I were 
a Mexican I would tell you, "Have you not room in your own coun- 
try to bury your dead men? If you come into mine we will greet 
you with bloody hands, and welcome you to hospitable graves." 
21 



306 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

Why, says the Chairman of this Committee of Foreign Rela- 
tions, it is the most reasonable thing in the world ! We ought to 
have the Bay of San Francisco. Why? Because it is the best har- 
bor on the Pacific ! It has been my fortune, Mr. President, to have 
practiced a good deal in criminal courts in the course of my life, but 
I never yet heard a thief, arraigned for stealing a horse, plead that it 
was the best horse that he could find in the country ! We want Cal- 
ifornia. What for? Why, says the Senator from Michigan, we will 
have it ; and the Senator from South Carolina, with a very mistaken 
view, I think, of policy, says, you can't keep our people from going 
there. I don't desire to prevent them. Let them go and seek their 
happiness in whatever country or clime it pleases them. 

All I ask of them is, not to require this Government to protect 
them with that banner consecrated to war waged for principles — 
eternal, enduring truth. Sir, it is not meet that our old flag should 
throw its protecting folds over expeditions for lucre or for land. But 
you still say, you want room for your people. This has been the 
plea of every robber-chief from Nimrod to the present hour. I dare 
say, when Tamerlane descended from his throne built of seventy 
thousand human skulls, and marched his ferocious battalions to fur- 
ther slaughter, I dare say he said, "I want room. " Bajazet was 
another gentleman of kindred tastes and wants with us Anglo-Sax- 
ons — he "wanted room." Alexander, too, the mighty "Macedon- 
ian madman," when he wandered with his Greeks to the plains of 
India, and fought a bloody battle on the very ground where recently 
England and the Sikhs engaged in strife for "room," was no doubt 
in quest of some California there. Many a Monterey had he to 
storm to get "room." Sir, he made quite as much of that sort of 
history as you ever will. Mr. President, do you remember the last 
chapter in that history? It is soon read. Oh! I wish we could but 
understand its moral. Ammon's son (so was Alexander named), 
after all his victories, died drunk in Babylon ! The vast empire he 
conquered to "get room" became the prey of the generals he had 
trained ; it was disparted, torn to pieces, and so ended. Sir, there is 
a very significant appendix ; it is this : The descendants of the 
Greeks — of Alexander's Greeks — are now governed by a descendant 
of Attila! Mr. President, while we are fighting for room, let us 
ponder deeply this appendix. I was somewhat amazed, the other 
day, to hear the Senator from Michigan declare that Europe had 
quite forgotten us till these battles waked them up. I suppose the 



ON THE MEXICAN WAR. 307 

Senator feels grateful to the President for "waking up" Europe. 
Does the President, who is, I hope, read in civic as well as military 
lore, remember the saying of one who had pondered upon history 
long — long, too, upon man, his nature and true destiny? Montes- 
quieu did not think highly of this way of "waking up." "Happy," 
says he, "is that nation whose annals are tiresome." 

The Senator from Michigan has a different view of this. He 
thinks that a nation is not distinguished until it is distinguished in 
war; he fears that the slumbering faculties of Europe have not been 
able to ascertain that there are twenty millions of Anglo-Saxons 
here, making railroads and canals, and speeding all the arts of peace 
to the utmost accomplishment of the most refined civilization. They 
do not know it ! And what is the wonderful expedient which this 
democratic method of making history would adopt in order to make 
us known? Storming cities, desolating peaceful, happy homes, 
shooting men — aye, sir, such is war — and shooting women, too ! 

Sir, I have read, in some account of your battle of Monterey, 
of a lovely Mexican girl, who, with the benevolence of an angel in 
her bosom, and the robust courage of a hero in her heart, was busily 
engaged, during the bloody conflict, amid the crash of falling houses, 
the groans of the dying, and the wild shriek of battle, in carrying 
water to slake the burning thirst of the wounded of either host. 
While bending over a wounded American soldier, a cannon-ball 
struck her and blew her to atoms ! Sir, I do not charge my brave, 
generous-hearted countrymen who fought that fight with this. No, 
no ! We who send them — we who know that scenes like this, which 
might send tears of sorrow "down Pluto's iron cheek," are the 
invariable, inevitable attendants on war — we are accountable for this. 
And this — this is the way we are to be made known to Europe. 
This — this is to be the undying renown of free, republican America! 
"She has stormed a city — killed many of its inhabitants of both 
sexes — she has room !" So \t will read. Sir, if this were our only 
history, then may God of His mercy grant that its volume may 
speedily come to a close. 

Why is it, sir, that we of the United States, a people of yes- 
terday compared with the older nations of the world, should be wag- 
ing war for territory — for "room?" Look at your country, extend- 
ing from the Alleghany Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, capable 
itself of sustaining, in comfort, a larger population than will be in 
the whole Union for one hundred years to come. Over this vast 



308 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

expanse of territory your population is now so sparse that I believe 
we provided, at the last session, a regiment of mounted men to 
guard the mail, from the frontier of Missouri to the mouth of the 
Columbia; and yet you persist in the ridiculous assertion, "I want 
room." One would imagine, from the frequent reiteration of the 
complaint, that you had a bursting, teeming population, whose 
energy was paralyzed, whose enterprise w^as crushed, for want of 
space. Why should we be so weak or wicked as to offer this idle 
apology for ravaging a neighboring republic? It will impose on no 
one at home or abroad. 

Do we not know, Mr. President, that it is a law never to be 
repealed, that falsehood shall be short lived? Was it not ordained 
of old that truth only shall abide forever? Whatever we may say 
to-day, or whatever we may write in our books, the stern tribunal of 
history will review it all, detect falsehood, and bring us to judgment 
before that posterity which shall bless or curse us, as we may act 
nozv, wisely or otherwise. We may hide in the grave (which awaits 
us all ) in vain ; we may hope there, like the foolish bird that hides 
its head in the sand, in the vain belief that its body is not seen, yet 
even there this preposterous excuse of want of "room" shall be 
laid bare, and the quick-coming future will decide that it was a hypo- 
critical pretense, under which we sought to conceal the avarice 
which prompted us to covet and to seize by force tJiat which was 
not ours. 

Mr. President, this uneasy desire to augment our territory has 
depraved the moral sense and blunted the otherwise keen sagacity of 
our people. What has been the fate of all nations who have acted 
upon the idea that they must advance ! Our young orators cherish 
this notion with a fervid, but fatally mistaken zeal. They call it by 
the mysterious name of "destiny." "Our destiny," they say is 
"onward," and hence they argue, with ready sophistry, the propri- 
ety of seizing upon any territory and any people that may lie in the 
way of our "fated" advance. Recently these progressives have 
grown classical; some assiduous student of antiquities has helped 
them to a patron saint. They have wandered back into the deso- 
lated Pantheon, and there, among the Polytheistic relics of that 
"pale mother of dead empires," they have found a god whom these 
Romans, centuries gone by, baptized "Terminus." 

Sir, I have heard much and read somewhat of this gentleman Ter- 
minus. Alexander, of whom I have spoken, was a devotee of this 



ON THE MEXICAN WAR. 309 

divinity. We have seen the end of him and his empire. It was 
said to be an attribute of this god that he must ahvays advance, and 
never recede. So both repubhcan and imperial Rome beheved. It 
was, as they said, their destiny. And for a while it did seem to be 
even so. Roman Terminus did advance. Under the eagles of 
Rome he was carried from his home on the Tiber to the furthest 
East on the one hand, and to the far West, among the then bar- 
barous tribes of western Europe, on the other. But at length the 
time came when retributive justice had become "a destiny." The 
despised Gaul calls out the contemned Goth, and Attila, with his 
Huns, answers back the battle shout to both. The "blue eyed na- 
tions of the North," in succession or united, pour forth their count- 
less hosts of warriors upon Rome and Rome's always-advancing 
god Terminus. And now the battle-ax of the barbarian strikes 
down the conquering eagle of Rome. Terminus at last recedes, 
slowly at first, but finally he is driven to Rome, and from Rome to 
Byzantium. Whoever would know the further fate of this Roman 
deity, so recently taken under the patronage of American Democ- 
racy, may find ample gratification of his curiosity in the luminous 
pages of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall." Such will find that Rome 
thought as you now think, that it was her destiny to conquer prov- 
inces and nations, and no doubt she sometimes said as you say, "I 
will conquer a peace," and where now is she, the Mistress of the 
World ? The spider weaves his web in her palaces, the owl sings his 
watch-song in her towers. Teutonic power now lords it over the ser- 
vile remnant, the miserable memento of old and once omnipotent 
Rome. Sad, very sad, are the lessons which time has written for us. 
Through and in them all, I see nothing but the inflexible execution 
of that old law, which ordains as eternal, that cardinal rule, "Thou 
shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods, nor anytJdng which is his." 
Since I have lately heard so much about the dismemberment of 
Mexico, I have looked back to see how, in the course of events, 
which some call "Providence," it has fared with other nations, who 
engaged in this work of dismemberment. I see that in the latter 
half of the eighteenth century, three powerful nations, Russia, Aus- 
tria and Prussia, united in the dismemberment of Poland. They 
said, too, as you say, "it is our destiny." They "wanted room." 
Doubtless each of these thought, with his share of Poland, his power 
was too strong ever to fear invasion, or even insult. One had his 
California, another his New Mexico and the third his Vera Cruz. 



310 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

Did they remain untouched and incapable of harm ? Alas ! No — 
far, very far from it. Retributive justice must fulfill its destiny, too. 
A very few years pass off, and we hear of a new man, a Corsican 
Heutenant, the self-named "armed soldier of Democracy," Napoleon. 
He ravages Austria, covers her land with blood, drives the Northern 
C?esar from his capital, and sleeps in his palace. Austria may now 
remember how her power trampled upon Poland. Did she not pay 
dear, very dear, for her California? 

But has Prussia no atonement to make? You see this same 
Napoleon, the blind instrument of Providence, at work there. The 
thunders of his cannon at Jena proclaim the work of retribution for 
Poland's wrongs; and the successors of the Great Frederick, the 
drill-sergeant of Europe, are seen flying across the sandy plain that 
surrounds their capital, right glad if they may escape captivity or 
death. But how fares it with the Autocrat of Russia? Is he secure 
in his share of the spoils of Poland? No. Suddenly we see, sir, 
six hundred thousand armed men marching to Moscow, Does his 
Vera Cruz protect him now? Far from it. Blood, slaughter, deso- 
lation spread abroad over the land, and finally the conflagration of 
the old commercial metropolis of Russia, closes the retribution she 
must pay for her share in the dismemberment of her weak and impo- 
tent neighbor. Mr. President, a mind more prone to look for the 
judgments of Heaven in the doings of men than mine, cannot fail in 
this to see the providence of God. When Moscow burned, it 
seemed as if the earth was lighted up, that the nations might behold 
the scene. As that mighty sea of fire gathered and heaved and 
rolled upward, and yet higher, till its flames licked the stars, and fired 
the whole heavens, it did seem as though the God of the nations was 
writing in characters of flame on the front of his throne, that doom 
that shall fall upon the strong nation which tramples in scorn upon 
the weak. And what fortune awaits him, the appointed executor of 
this work, when it was all done ? He, too, conceived the notion that 
his destiny pointed onward to universal dominion. France was too 
small — Europe, he thought, should bow down before him. But as 
soon as this idea took possession of his soul, he, too, becomes pow- 
erless. His Terminus must recede, too. Right there, while he wit- 
nessed the humiliation, and doubtless meditated the subjugation of 
Russia, He who holds the winds in His fist gathered the snows of 
the north and blew them upon his six hundred thousand men ; they 
fled — they froze — they perished. And now the mighty Napoleon, 



ON THE MEXICAN WAR. 311 

who had resolved on universal dominion, lie, too, is summoned to 
answer for the violation of that ancient law, ' ' thou shalt not covet 
anything which is thy neighbor's." How is the mighty fallen! 
He, beneath whose proud footstep Europe trembled, he is now an 
exile at Elba, and now finally a prisoner on the rock of St. Helena, 
and there, on a barren island, in an unfrequented sea, in the crater of an 
extinguished volcano, there is the death-bed of the mighty conqueror. 
All his annexations have come to that ! His last hour is now come, 
and he, the man of destiny, he who had rocked the world as with the 
throes of an earthquake, is now powerless, still — even as a beggar, 
so he died. On the wings of a tempest that raged with unwonted 
fury, up to the throne of the only Power that controlled him while 
he lived, went the fiery soul of that wonderful warrior, another wit- 
ness to the existence of that eternal decree, that they who do not 
rule in righteousness shall perish from the earth. He has found 
"room" at last. And France, she, too, has found "room." Her 
"eagles" now no longer scream along the banks of the Danube, the 
Po and the Borysthenes. They have returned home, to their old 
eyrie, between the Alps, the Rhine and the Pyrenees ; so shall it be 
with yours. You may carry them to the loftiest peaks of the Cor- 
dilleras, they may wave with insolent triumph in the Halls of the 
Montezumas, the armed men of Mexico may quail before them, but 
the weakest hand in Mexico, uplifted in prayer to the God of Jus- 
tice, may call down against you a Power, in the presence of which, 
the iron hearts of your warriors shall be turned into ashes. 

Mr. President, if the history of our race has established any 
truth, it is but a confirmation of what is written, "the way of the 
transgressor is hard." Inordinate ambition, wantoning in power 
and spurning the humble maxims of justice has — ever has — and ever 

shall end in ruin. Strength cannot always trample upon weakness 

the humble shall be exalted, the bowed down will at length be lifted 
up. It is by faith in the law of strict justice,' and the practice of its 
precepts, that nations alone can be saved. All the annals of the 
human race, sacred and profane, are written over with this great 
truth, in characters of living light. It is my fear, my fixed belief, 
that in this invasion, this war with Mexico, we have forgotten this 
vital truth. Why is it, that we have been drawn into this whirlpool 
of war? How clear and strong was the light that shone upon the 
path of duty a year ago ! The last disturbing question with England 
was settled— our power extended its peaceful sway from the Atlantic 



312 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

to the Pacific; from the Alleghanies we looked out upon Europe, 
and from the tops of the Stony Mountains we could descry the 
shores of Asia; a rich commerce with all the nations of Europe 
poured wealth and abundance into our lap on the Atlantic side, 
while an unoccupied commerce of three hundred millions of Asiatics 
waited on the Pacific for our enterprise to come and possess it. One 
hundred millions of dollars will be wasted in this fruitless war. Had 
this money of the people been expended in making a railroad from 
your northern lakes to the Pacific, as one of your citizens has begged 
of you in vain, you would have made a highway for the world be- 
tween Asia and Europe. Your Capital then would be within thirty or 
forty days' travel of any and every point on the map of the civilized 
world. Through this great artery of trade, you would have carried 
through the heart of your own country, the teas of China and the 
spices of India to the markets of England and France. Why, why, 
Mr. President, did we abandon the enterprises of peace, and betake 
ourselves to the barbarous achievements of war? Why did we "for- 
sake this fair and fertile field to batten on that moor." 

But, Mr. President, if further acquisition of territory is to be 
the result either of conquest or treaty, then I scarcely know which 
should be preferred, eternal war with Mexico, or the hazards of 
internal commotion at home, which last, I fear, may come if another 
province is to be added to our territory. There is one topic con- 
nected with this subject which I tremble when I approach, and yet I 
cannot forbear to notice it. It meets you in every step you take. 
It threatens you which way soever you go in the prosecution of this 
war. I allude to the question of Slavery. Opposition to its further 
extension, it must be obvious to every one, is a deeply-rooted deter- 
mination with men of all parties in what we call the non-slaveholding 
States. New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio, three of the most pow- 
erful, have already sent their legislative instructions here — so it will 
be, I doubt not, in all the rest. It is vain now to speculate about 
the reasons for this. Gentlemen of the South may call it prejudice, 
passion, hypocrisy, fanaticism. I shall not dispute with them now 
on that point. The great fact that it is so, and not otherwise, is 
what it concerns us to know. You nor I cannot alter or change this 
opinion if we would. These people only say, we will not, cannot 
consent that you shall carry slavery where it does not already exist. 
They do not seek to disturb you in that institution, as it exists in 
your States. Enjoy it if you will, and as you will. This is their 



ON THE MEXICAN WAR. 313 

language, this their determination. How is it in the South? Can it 
be expected that they should expend in common, their blood and 
their treasure, in the acquisition of immense territory, and then will- 
ingly forego the right to carry thither their slaves, and inhabit the 
conquered country if they please to do so? Sir, I know the feelings 
and opinions of the South too well to calculate on this. Nay, I 
believe they would even contend to any extremity for the mere 
rigJit, had they no wish to exert it. I believe (and I confess I trem- 
ble when the conviction presses upon me) that there is equal obsti- 
nacy on both sides of this fearful question. If then, we persist in 
war, which if it terminate in anything short of a mere wanton waste 
of blood as well as money, must end (as this bill proposes) in the 
acquisition of territory, to which at once this controversy must 
attach — this bill would seem to be nothing less than a bill to produce 
internal commotion. Should we prosecute this war another moment 
or expend one dollar in the purchase or conquest of a single acre of 
Mexican land, the North and the South are brought into collison on 
a point where neither will yield. Who can foresee or foretell the 
result ? Who so bold or reckless as to look such a conflict in the 
face unmoved? I do not envy the heart of him who can realize the 
possibility of such a conflict without emotions too painful to be 
endured. Why then shall we, the representatives of the sovereign 
States of this Union — the chosen guardians of this confederated 
Republic, why should we precipitate this fearful struggle, by contin- 
uing a war, the results of which must be to force us at once upon it ? 
Sir, rightly considered, tJiis is treason, treason to the Union, treason 
to the dearest interests, the loftiest aspirations, the most cherished 
hopes of our constituents. It is a crime to risk the possibility of 
such a contest. It is a crime of such infernal hue, that every other 
in the catalogue of iniquity, when compared with it, whitens into 
virtue. Oh, Mr. President, it does seem to me, if hell itself could 
yawn and vomit up the fiends that inhabit its penal abodes, commis- 
sioned to disturb the harmony of this world, and dash the fairest 
prospect of happiness that ever allured the hopes of men, the first 
step in the consummation of this diabolical purpose would be, to 
light up the fires of internal war, and plunge the sister States of this 
Union into the bottomless gulf of civil strife. We stand this day on 
the crumbling brink of that gulf — we see its bloody eddies wheeling 
and boiling before us — shall we not payse before it be too late? 
How plain again is here the path, I may add the only way of duty, 



314 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

of prudence, of true patriotism. Let us abandon all idea of acquir- 
ing further territory, and by consequence cease at once to prosecute 
this war. Let us call home our armies, and bring them at once 
within our own acknowledged limits. Show Mexico that you are 
sincere when you say you desire nothing by conquest. She has 
learned that she cannot encounter you in war, and if she had not, 
she is too weak to disturb you here. Tender her peace, and my life 
on it, she will then accept it. But whether she shall or not, you will 
have peace without her consent. It is your invasion that has made 
war, your retreat will restore peace. Let us then close forever the 
approaches of internal feud, and so return to the ancient concord 
and the old way of national prosperity and permanent glory. Let 
us here, in this temple consecrated to the Union, perform a solemn 
lustration ; let us wash Mexican blood from our hands, and on these 
altars, in the presence of that image of the Father of his country 
that looks down upon us, swear to preserve honorable peace with all 
the world, and eternal brotherhood with each other. 



INCIDENTAL REMARKS ON "THREE MILLION BILL." 



In United States Senate March ist, 1847. 

Mr, Corwin rose to explain the motives which influenced him in 
giving his vote, on a former occasion, on a bill similar to the one 
before the Senate, to which allusion had been made by the Senator 
from Delaware [Mr. J. M. Clayton], in the course of his speech 
to-day. The vote of the preceding session, he believed, was almost, 
if not altogether, unanimous. It was the first of a series of bills 
passed at that time, and passed speedily. He admitted that he voted 
for that bill; he voted for it under the circumstances in which it was 
presented to the Senate. They were officially advised that our army 
had been ordered by the President to march from the position it had 
occupied on the Nueces to the Rio Grande. This order was given 
by the President, the commander-in-chief, and the army was not at 
liberty to disobey. They were also informed that hostilities had 
been commenced between us and Mexico. At that time General 
Taylor had under his command certainly not exceeding three thou- 
sand men — his impression was that General Taylor had not more 
than two thousand five hundred men. They were informed at the 
same time, in the same document, which came to them from the 
President — if it were not so, he hoped he should be corrected — or 
through other channels, that the Mexican force amounted to eight 
thousand men — some statements made it a force of twelve thousand 
men — which was hovering about our little army with the avowed 
determination to exterminate them. Under these circumstances, the 
President of the United States asked for men and money — not for 
the prosecution of a war of invasion into the heart of Mexico — not 
for the avowed purpose of taking possession of her towns — still less, 
as he was reminded by the Senator from Georgia [Mr. Berrien], to 
dismember the Mexican republic, seizing a province here and another 
there, and holding them by right of conquest, that they may serve 
as security and indemnity for the almost boundless expense of this 
war. He at that time voted for that bill, as he understood every 

Senator on this side of the chamber did except two, not with a view 

(315) 



316 SPEECHES OF THOMAS COKWIN, 

to make war on Mexico, but for the rescue of our little army from 
its perilous position. The Senator from Delaware had this day 
reminded him of that vote, and by implication reproached him with 
apparent inconsistency. 

Mr. Clayton remarked, " Not at all. The Senator has perfectly justified his 
vote." 

Well, then, the Senator from Delaware had taken it unkind in 
him that, to quote the Senator's own eloquent language, he had hung 
his harp upon the willow that day when his own and the harp of his 
friend from Kentucky [Mr. Ckhtenden] were strung to such melliflu- 
ous tones. Mr. Corwin remembered well that he was silent on that 
occasion, and he should have been silent up to this hour, if it had 
not been that he was now placed in a different position, and he was 
anxious to vindicate that position. Why should he have spoken? 
Delighted as he was then, and on all occasions, to listen to the harp- 
ing3 of his friends from Delaware and Kentucky, he knew his own 
music woulci have fallen upon deaf ears. Those Senators had waked 
up tones of deep supplication, and what followed ? Why, after they 
had strung their harps to notes of woe, they sat down to weep. Mr. 
Corwin had not thought it necessary to tune his harp on that day, 
and he did not now regret it. He, however, voted to give men and 
money for the purposes he had expressed, and what were they now 
told by the Executive message? That when the demand was made 
on Congress for these supplies, it was for the purpose of making a 
systematic invasion of Mexico, to dismember her territory, and hold- 
ing it by force until she would accept such terms as it pleases her 
conqueror to prescribe. But those terms were not made known to 
him. They were not advised what they will be, and the Mexicans 
were to be left altogether to Executive mercy. Under these circum- 
stances, he thought an extreme case was presented — a case which he 
found Senators on his side of the chamber willing to say may arise, 
which might justify them in withholding the supplies. He had acted 
upon his convictions of duty in the case, as it was presented to him ; 
but it never entered into his heart or his head to cast censure on 
those honorable Senators who differed from him. It was a long 
time, and after painful reflection, that he bf-ought himself to consent 
to give a vote different from the vote of those respected Senators 
around him, to whom he looked as his instructors and guides. He 
had risen merely to set himself right, and having done so, he should 
resume his scat. 



ON THE TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT OF OREGON. 



In the courge of the protracted dcbatf; in the United State* Senate, upon the bili 
to e»tahlis?i the Territorial fjovcrnmtnt of Oregon, Mr. (l^LAVTOS, of Delaware, on the 
12th July, 1848, moved that a wjtnrnittee of eight Senators — four from the Northern, 
and four from the Southern sections of the Union — be appointed by ballot, to whom 
the subject hhould be referred, Thi)> motion prevailed ; and the Committee on 'I'erri- 
tories wa» discharged from the further c/jni»ideration of »o much of the I're»ident'» Mes- 
sage, a» related to New Mexico and California, and the harnc referred Uj the said com- 
mittee of eight. 

Pending the preliminary debate upon this motion, in reply to an inquiry of Mr. 
CoRWi.v's, the Senators of S<*uth Carolina [Mr. lUriLEU And Mr. CauiounJ denounced 
the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of the Slate of 
Pennsylvania vs. Prigg, wj far as the Court held that all State legislation of that char- 
acter, whether intended to retard or facilitate the owner in the apprehension of his fugi- 
tive slave, was unconstitutional. Hui the former of these Senators [Mr. lUn i.Ku] 
agreed with the Chief Justice and two of the asM>ciatcs upon that cas<.-, who, he said, 
held that the non-slavcholding States " could pass no laws to prohibit the owner from 
exercising his constitutional rights in reclaiming his runaway slave; but that they 
might make «uch laws as would facilitate the delivery, which the obligation of good 
faith would demand at their hands," Mr. CojtWJ.s said : 

I am perfectly satisfied that the Senator stated the decision as 
recorded in our books. It is enough to say that a majority of th<; 
bench have decided the question which I proposed. 

Mr, Calhoun — I do not recognize the decision. 

I will not undertake to say, from a very accurate criticism of 
the case, whether the point now suggested was brought up directly 
before the court ; but it was discussed before it, as one of the ques- 
tions necessary to arrive at the decisions on the main point; and 
being discussed by the counsel on both sides, the question was as 
fully decided by the court as any other brought before them. In 
regard to the legislation of the States, I am not prepared to say 
whether the gentleman from South Carolina is fully correct in the 
statement of his views. But I think the gentlemen from the South 
have allowed their sensibilities to be quite too much excited on this 
subject. With regard to the transactions referred to in Kentucky, 



318 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

there has been a great mistake as to the facts. Commissioners were 
sent on behalf of the State of Kentucky to the State of Ohio, for 
the purpose of negotiating a treaty of extradition, as the gentleman 
from South Carolina calls it ; and I have only to say, that we did not 
imprison them nor send them home. We allowed them to remain 
at our court, where, with the help of the imperial parliament of 
Ohio, a law was enacted perfectly satisfactory to both sides, and 
almost in terms the same as the law of Pennsylvania, which was 
decided upon by the Supreme Court of the United States. That law 
was repealed by the legislature of the State of Ohio, for the simple 
reason that the highest judicial tribunal in the United States had 
decided that they had no constitutional power to pass it. Now, if 
these States lying within that district of country spoken of as 
included in the ordinance of 1787, are denounced for not complying 
as is supposed, with the terms of that ordinance, when it is shown 
that they have legislated exactly according to the prescription of that 
only tribunal who can interpret judicially the Constitution of the 
United States, all I can say is, that the charge falls harmless at our 
feet, and that all Christendom, in all time to come, will absolve 
us of it. 

Mr. Butler — I hope the gentleman will inform us whether that extraordinary 
embassy from Kentucky to the "imperial court" of Ohio, was not occasioned by the 
intolerable mischiefs which the people of Kentucky suffered from the escaping of their 
slaves into Ohio, beyond the reach of reclamation ? 

I will answer the Senator with great pleasure. The embassy 
originated in the solicitude of our sister State of Kentucky to pre- 
serve amicable relations with us. The reason assigned by the em- 
bassy was, that our law did not furnish to them the means of 
reclaiming their fugitive slaves. The people of the United States 
had acted upon the subject in the law of 1793; but it seems that 
they did not act with that degree of efficiency necessary, in the 
judgment of the people of Kentucky, to secure to them their prop- 
erty. There was another reason which induced the State of Ohio to 
entertain that negotiation, and to enact this law. The people of 
Ohio were just as solicitous as their fellow-citizens of Kentucky to 
have a statute on that subject, or at least embracing many of the 
cases supposed in Kentucky to fall within the law. There were, I 
believe, a few felons in Kentucky — for there is, I believe, a peniten- 
tiary there — and occasionally it contained individuals supposed to 
have committed crimes. Some of them, finding it inconvenient to 



TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT OP OREGON. 319 

execute their purposes in Kentucky, were in the habit of coming 
over to Ohio for the purpose of kidnapping negroes. Occasionally, 
a gentleman would be killed in this amiable pursuit; and the apology 
was, that they had come to reclaim fugitive slaves. If this state- 
ment were false, no harm was done ; if true, the man who shot him 
was punished as a murderer, under the law of Ohio. It was, there- 
fore, very desirable on both sides, as well to protect Kentucky in 
claiming her slaves as to prevent Kentuckians from coming over to 
kidnap — a very common practice in all States bordering on slave 
States, with which we were greatly troubled, the expense from peni- 
tentiaries being very considerably augmented from that very source 
— that the question should be settled. 

Mr. Calhoun — I cannot permit the Senator to escape even under a decision of 
the Supreme Court. By express contract between the rest of the States and the people 
inhabiting these territories, which are now States, the latter bound themselves to deliver 
up our fugitive slaves. They are the parties to that contract, under the ordinance, 
and it has not been superseded by the Constitution. 

Have not the Supreme Court, to which reference has been 
made, interpreted our rights, duties and powers, under that com- 
pact? 

Mr. Calhoun — Simply and only under the Constitution of the United States. 
They could not put aside a contract. It stands upon higher principles. It stands 
entirely on different ground from the case in Pennsylvania. The decision has not been 
confirmed, and I trust never will be. I have always considered it as the most extraor- 
dinary decision ever made. But I put that aside, and present the positive contract 
between these parties. There was no United States Government then to fulfill it. The 
old Congress had no such power. There stands the contract, and will ever stand, 
around which it is impossible to go. 

I have only one remark in reply to the Senator's view of our 
obligations under the Ordinance. When the Supreme Court decided 
that, under the Constitution, made subsequently to that Ordinance, 
these States had no power to pass such laws, unquestionably they 
have given a judicial interpretation to their rights, power and duties 
under the Ordinance as well as under the Constitution. The truth 
is, that the Ordinance and the Constitution are in the very same 
words. Whatever obligations there may be under the Ordinance of 
1787 remain under the Constitution, and are re-imposed by that 
instrument. Now, it must be seen, that the decision of the Supreme 
Court comprehends every obligation under which the State of Ohio, 
or any northwestern State, has been placed by virtue of that Ordi- 
nance. Surely if that compact, in the judgment of the Supreme 
Court, had had an obligation above the Constitution and beyond it. 



320 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

they would have said so. It is true that the case was one from 
Pennsylvania, but much of the discussion, as every gentleman who 
attended to it at that time knows, was upon this very Ordinance. 
But that is immaterial. If the obligations under the Constitution of 
the United States, which the State of Ohio, or any other State of 
the Northwestern Territory, owes to the South, as it is called, exists 
by virtue of the Constitution of the United States, they are not tol- 
erated in legislating upon the subject. 

Mr. Calhoun — I cannot permit even that view of the case to pass. The Consti- 
tution expressly provides for the continuance of this contract betvireen the United States . 
and the people that inhabited the Northwest Territory. The sixth article of the Con- 
stitution contains an express permission that "all debts contracted, and engagements 
entered into before the adoption of this Constitution shall be as valid against the United 
States under this Constitution as under the Confederation." Now, is it not manifest 
that the Ordinance of 1787 looked to its fulfillment under the present Government, and 
not the old Confederation, which had no machinery, no capacity to execute it ? If the 
words of the Ordinance and those in the Constitution are precisely the same — and I 
have not compared them — it is one of the strongest arguments to show that the decision 
of the court was wrong, and that the words of the Constitution ought to have received 
the interpretation of the prior words, instead of the prior words receiving the interpre- 
tation of the latter. 

I do not intend to controvert the right of the gentleman to take 
an appeal from the decision of the Supreme Court, but I do not 
know where he can find any revisory power at present. 

Again, on the i8th, 19th and 22nd of July, the same subject was debated — on the 
last named date Mr. Hale was about to address the Senate, but yielded to Mr. CoK- 
WIN, who said : 

I wish to submit to any member of the committee one or two 
questions to which it is very desirable to myself, and I dare say to 
many others, that a reply should be given before we are called upon 
to vote on this bill. The bill, with what propriety I will not under- 
take to say, has been described by the honorable chairman of the 
committee, as a Compromise Bill. It will be in the recollection of 
every Senator, that during the discussion upon the Oregon bill, 
which gave rise to the proposition that laws should be made for all 
these Territories together, there was one point of law discussed by 
several gentlemen on both sides of the Chamber. The honorable 
Senator from South Carolina, if I did not misunderstand him, main- 
tained, that by the Constitution of the United States it was incom- 
petent for Congress to enact that Slavery should not exist in the Ter- 
ritories ; and that it was equally incompetent for any territorial gov- 
ernment of any sort that might be erected there to make such a law. 



TERRITOJUAh f jOVKRNM ICNT OF OltlldON. .'{21 

1 iiiulcrstood my lionor.ibk- fiiciui from Cicorgia on my left [Mi<. 
1}i;ki<iI':n] to maintain the same ])iopo.sition, in tlie same itlcntical 
terms. Now, 1 supposed, that after tliat (li^;cllssion, when llie whuh 
(jucslion had been submitted to this committee, constituted c hiclly 
of [gentlemen learned in the law, they must have revolved in their 
minds and discussed in their retirement this fundamental i)roposition 
lyin^ at the bottom of all oiu' action. J did expect — tliou^di per- 
haps I was wronj; in entertaining that antici|)ation — that we ^.hoidd 
have had a detailed report from that committee, resolvinj^' that radi 
cal question for the benefit of Senators who mijdit not be able, in 
consequence of lluir not jjcinj^f learind in the law, to };ive to the 
proposition that defrree of attention which it deserved. H it be 
true, as was maintained by my friend from Geor^da — f<jr whose le^'al 
acquirements I entertain so much respect that I can scarcely trust 
myself to differ from him— that Congress can make no such l.iw, 
why, then, 1 presume that the (objection urj^ard by the Senator from 
(,'onnecticut, on the other side of the Chamber, falls to the j^noimd. 
I rise, then, for the purpose of askinj^; of tlu; learned j;eiitlemeii who 
were occupied so assiduously for some days in the examination of 
this important question, and who must liave known, before they 
retired, that if this grand obstacle could be removed, we should have 
no difficulty at all in passing such a bill, whether they made any 
investigation on that point? and if so, whether they are at liberty tr) 
dischjse the result of it to the Senate? 

Again: I wish to be iiifonii<-d from these gentlemen learned in 
the law — for I have not turned my attention to the particular .statu- 
tory provisions on this point — how it is that an appeal and writ of 
error shall lie from the superior judicial tribunal established in the 
'!'( rritories to the Supreme Court of the United States? The gentle- 
men of the committee having, as I su|)pos(.'d, very sedulously 
directed their attention to the subject wliich divides us lure — the 
subject of Slavery — I wish to know whether, when this law conu-s to 
be put in operation, the committee have found with certainty that 
the question of Slavery, as it is usually brought up in courts, can be 
brought by a writ of error before the Supreme Court of the United 
States, without some specific legislation? I'or instance: I believe 
that in the law which regulates writs of error and appeals from the 
Circuit Courts of the United States to the Supreme Court, it is pro 
vided that the value of the thing in controversy must be at least two 
thousand dollars, exclusive of costs. I have been told, informally, 
22 



322 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

that the provision in this bill, allowing writs of error and appeal, was 
made to satisfy any gentleman that it was the intention of the com- 
mittee to withdraw this controversy about the power of Congress to 
make laws for the Territories from the Congress of the United States 
— to withdraw this constitutional question, in other words, from Con- 
gress, and submit it to the judicial tribunals of the country. Now, 
if that be so, and if that would be the effect of the bill in case it 
were enacted, I wish to know, if a man go into one of these Terri- 
tories with a slave, whether the object of the bill is to raise the ques- 
tion whether that sort of property, without law, can be carried into 
a Territory where there is no law, and if so, how it is to be carried 
into effect? Under the existing law, I suppose the slave would ask 
a writ of habeas corpus, and require his master to produce him in 
court, and show the cause of his capture and detention before one 
of these territorial judges. The territorial judge, according to this 
bill, is to be appointed by the present Chief Magistrate of the 
United States — a fact which I beg to mention for the information of 
gentlemen north of Mason and Dixon's line. This judge will decide, 
if he believe the constitutional law to be as the gentlemen from 
South Carolina and Georgia maintain, that the master has a right to 
the services of the slave, who will be accordingly remanded into the 
service of his master. That is the way in which the case elaborates 
itself into a judgment, and how it is proposed to bring it before the 
Supreme Court of the United States, so that it may be decided by 
the highest judicial tribunal in America. How is it to come here? 
Is the property in controversy of the value of two thousand dollars? 
What is the value of a slave? My learned friend from Georgia 
smiles. Perhaps I may not be so familiar as he is with the value of 
that kind of property. But if he can listen to me with the gravity 
which I think the subject demands 

Mr. Berrien, (in his seat) — The gentleman is entirely mistaken. 

I withdraw the remark. How is the value of a slave to be 
ascertained? We are told that there is no property in the man, but 
simply a claim to his services. What, then, is the value of his ser- 
vices? It may be more or less, according to the judgment of men; 
but very few slaves, I believe, sell for a thousand dollars. If, then, 
the value of the slave do not reach two thousand dollars, his fate is 
decided by this judge appointed by the President of the United 
States, who sits in his court fifteen hundred miles frpm Washington 
City. This is the final judgment. 



TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT OF OREGON. 323 

I may be wrong in all this. But certainly, as the law now 
stands, if such a case come within the category of the bill before us, 
I have difficulty in perceiving how it can be brought here. I say 
nothing now of the great advantages that will accrue to the slave 
population which may be carried there, in consequence of their hav- 
ing such an easy and facile method of bringing their case before the 
Supreme Court ; nor of the perfect equality between them and their 
master as respects the giving of the requisite security for costs ; nor 
of the ease with which they can attend the Supreme Court of the 
United States, after a journey of fifteen hundred miles during the 
winter, to hear the decision of that tribunal as to whether Cuffee or 
his master is right in the matter ! But it does seem to me that there 
is here an anomaly worth looking at about the noon of the nine- 
teenth century. I do not rise, however, to discuss the question, but 
simply to ask the learned gentleman from Vermont, or any other 
gentleman who has given attention to this legal question, to favor me 
with a reply to those interrogatories which I have now respectfully 
submitted. I should also be very happy to be informed as to the 
amount of population in Upper California, and in that described in 
this bill as New Mexico. I believe we have pretty accurate statistics 
in relation to the population of Oregon. But I am somewhat at a 
loss to know why a distinction has been made between Oregon and 
the territories of California and New Mexico. I should be very 
happy to know why the people of Oregon have been regarded as 
capable of making their own laws, while the people of California 
and New Mexico have been deemed incapable. 

Mr. Clayton — The committee thought, in view of all the facts, that the people 
of California and New Mexico were not now in that state which fitted them to elect a 
delegate to Congress, or a territorial legislature. The gentleman, as a northwestern 
man, knows that many of our territories, in the first instance, had just such a form of 
government extended over them as is proposed in this bill for California and New Mex- 
ico. The next stage of territorial organization we have given to Oregon, and I think 
my friend from Ohio must admit that the character of the population of New Mexico 
Tenders them utterly unfit for self-government. 

Will the Senator from Delaware allow me to ask another ques- 
tion ? Why does he consider the people of New Mexico unfit for 
self-government ? 

Mr. Clayton — They are entirely too ignorant, and the gentleman probably knows 
that as well as I do. 



ON THE CLAYTON COMPROMISE BILL. 



On the 24th July, 1848, Mr. Corwin addressed the Senate at length upon the 
Compromise Bill reported by Mr. Clayton from the Committee of Eight. Mr. Cor- 
win said: 

Mr. President: 

I should scarcely undertake to assign to the Senate a reason for 
prolonging this debate, especially after the very elaborate and lucid 
exposition of the bill now before us, which has been given by the 
Senator from Vermont ; I feel compelled, however, from various con- 
siderations, with which I will not trouble the Senate, to state, in very 
few words, if that be possible, what my objections are to the passage 
of the bill ; and it may be, to offer some few observations in reply to 
such propositions as have been announced at various times during 
this debate, by Senators on the other side of the Chamber. I have 
listened with great eagerness, since the commencement of this dis- 
cussion, to everything that has been said, with the most sincere and 
unfeigned desire to make myself acquainted with at least the pri- 
mary elements and principles which enter into the composition of 
the bill. And, I think I may say, without exposing myself to the 
charge of egotism, that I feel as little the influences which have been 
spoken of by the Senator from Vermont as it is desirable that any 
gentleman, acting in the capacity of a legislator, should feel. I do 
not participate, however I may advertise gentlemen, in the belief 
which has been so constantly expressed during this discussion, that 
this is a subject which is likely to produce that terrible and momen- 
tous excitement that is spoken of I believe if this principle were 
discussed solemnly, and, so to speak, abstractedly from those extrane- 
ous circumstances too frequently adverted to here, that we should be 
much more likely to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion to ourselves, 
and at more satisfactory results, I hope, to those who are to come 
after us. I have no belief that the passage of a law, such as is now 

before the Senate, will produce a disruption of the bonds that hold 

(324) 



ON THE CLAYTON COMPROMISE BILL. 325 

this Union together. I have no beUef that the passage of the law 
so much deprecated by some gentlemen on this side, by the name, 
if you please, of the " Wilmot Proviso," could, by any possibility 
whatever, induce the Southern portion of the Union, which, we are 
told, is so much excited on the subject, to tear themselves asunder 
from the Constitutional compact by which we are all held together. 
Sir, if I entertained an opinion of this kind, I should scarcely think 
a seat on this floor worth possessing for a single day. I do not 
think the technical term spoken of by the Senator from Vermont, 
the " Wilmot Proviso," can of itself exercise that influence upon 
statesmen of exalted intellect of the South, which has been inti- 
mated by gentlemen who have participated in this debate. What is 
this terrible Wilmot Proviso, that has been erected here and else- 
where into such a raw-head and bloody-bones, to use a very express- 
ive phrase of the nursery? What is it? Why, sir, there are about 
me Senators who know very well to whom the paternity of the 
"Wilmot Proviso," as it has been recently baptized, belonged. They 
know that the same gentleman who drafted the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, which is hung up in our halls and placed in our libraries, 
and regarded with the same reverence as our Bible — for it has 
become a Gospel of Freedom all over the world as well as in this 
country — drafted that which is called the "Wilmot Proviso," com- 
posing, as it did, a section of the Ordinance of 1787, and that the 
hand that drafted both was Jefierson's. There have been some 
strange misnomers in regard to acts, some strange confusion of 
nomenclature in this country, as in this case, when a part of the 
Ordinance of 1787 has come to bear the appellation of the "Wilmot 
Proviso." Sir, much as I respect that gentleman for his position 
upon this subject, which has connected his very name with the Ordi- 
nance of 1787, I deny to him the honor of originating it. It is a 
piracy of the copyright. I do not see that there is any danger that 
Southern gentlemen, after the lapse of so many years, and after the 
founding of a young empire in the West, by virtue of that Ordi- 
nance, will so desecrate the memory of Jefferson and spit on his 
grave, because we merely re-enact that Ordinance over a Territory 
which has subsequently come into our possession. I have no idea 
that such consequences will follow from the passage of such a law, 
as gentlemen have predicted. There must have been a strange revo- 
lution wrought in the minds of Southern gentlemen between 1787 
and 1847, if such consequences are to follow. And I could not help 



326 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

observing while the Senator from Vermont was expressing these 
noble sentiments, which everybody, even those who do not feel them 
must admire, telling us we should act here independently of the 
excitement without these walls, and that we should scorn those news- 
paper paragraphs in which we are vilified, written by those who know 
little of the motives by which we are influenced, and who care less ; I 
could not help observing that at last the Senator admonished us that 
there was an excitement abroad which we must allay ; and to do that, 
he agreed to this bill, although it was somewhat different from that 
which he desired — so that the lion-hearted Senator from Vermont 
has agreed to this Compromise, as it is called, because there is an 
excitement which he wishes to allay by it. Sir, I desire to see gen- 
tlemen act and vote here as if there were no excitement on the sub- 
ject. I should be very sorry, at least to allow any influences to 
operate upon my deliberate judgment, except those which belong to 
the relation of representative and constituent. It is the farthest from 
my intention of anything that can be conceived of to say anything 
in regard to this bill which may wound the feelings of gentlemen 
who have labored so hard to produce something that would satisfy 
us all. The Senator from Vermont has acted as he should have 
acted, has acted nobly in relation to this matter, and I know very 
well that he will be willing to accord to me the same rule of action, 
the same independence that he has used ; and I fear, when I come to 
speak of the bill, I shall be under the necessity of availing myself of 
what the gentleman has called a "special demurrer;" for I do not 
think there is such pressing necessity for the passage of the bill, as 
to oblige us to forego the statement of such objections as we may 
entertain. Suppose you enact no law, what will happen ? Oregon 
has for many years taken care of herself, and I believe, on one or 
two occasions, made better laws for herself than she is likely to get 
at our hands. She has taken care of herself ever since she became 
an integral portion of the Union, by the settlement of the dispute 
between us and Great Britain. How the new provinces may fare, 
what may happen to New Mexico and California in the intermediate 
time which will elapse, if we should not be able to act upon this 
matter at the present session, is not a matter of much concern or 
apprehension with me, because I know they have been in your cus- 
tody for a year or two, and have not complained at all for the want 
of legal enactments ; they have only complained that you have made 
too free use of gunpowder. Rather than not act in the matter fully 



ON THE CLAYTON COMPROMISE BILL. 327 

and definitely, as I would if there were no emergency, I would allow 
those provinces to take care of themselves for another twelve months 
and come here at the beginning of a new session, ready to act upon 
the subject as my judgment should dictate. 

Now, sir, in the first place, I understand we have a message 
from the President, although I believe it has not been adverted to by 
any one, calling upon us to designate the boundaries of these terri- 
tories of New Mexico and California ; and another branch of the 
Legislature has been anxiously looking to the geography of those 
countries, and tracing their history, and are as yet incapable of deter- 
mining where Texas ends and New Mexico begins ; and they have 
been under the necessity of applying to the Chief Magistrate to give 
them a lesson in geography. What the substance of the information 
they have received was I do not know, but I have been informed, 
upon the floor of the Senate, that Texas extends to the banks of the 
Rio Grande. 

If this be so, I must be permitted to look to the gentlemen of 
the committee for information as to how much is left for New Mex- 
ico, what extent of territory, and what amount of population ? Is 
it worth while to establish a Territorial Government there, if it be 
true that Texas extends to the Rio Grande? I think it will be found 
that there will be but a fragrant of New Mexico left, so far as popu- 
lation is concerned. It will be very convenient, perhaps, to attach 
it to the Government of California. If you send your Governors 
and other officers there without establishing the boundaries, there 
will be a conflict of territorial jurisdiction. Is it not expedient to 
settle it now, when you are founding new Governments there, and 
placing side by side institutions which may be very dissimilar? It is 
perfectly certain that Texas will extend her laws to the Rio Grande ; 
and if she does, she will comprehend within her jurisdiction a large 
proportion of the population of what was formerly New Mexico. 
Here, then, is my special demurrer. Under other circumstances, I 
am sure the Senator from Vermont would agree with me that it is 
indispensable to the Governments which we are about to establish 
that the limits of their jurisdiction should be defined, although I do 
not know that this would be an insuperable objection with me, if the 
other portions of the bill were such as I could give my assent to. 

And now I intend, in a few words, to state why I object to this 
Compromise Bill. Sir, there is no one — there can be no one — who 
does not desire that every subject of legislation which comes before 



328 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

the Senate should be settled harmoniously, and, if it might be so, 
with the unanimous concurrence of every Senator. But, sir, in my 
judgment, with this subject as it stands before us, it would be arro- 
gant presumption to undertake to vote upon this bill with a question 
before us which we undertake to transfer to the Judiciary Depart- 
ment of the country. How is this? Is it not a new thing in your 
legislation, when a system of policy is proposed, and the constitu- 
tional propriety of that policy is questioned, to pass an act for the 
purpose of getting a case before the Supreme Court, that that Court 
may instruct the Senate of the United States as to constitutional 
duty in the matter? Sir, if we know certainly what that law will be, 
need there be any hesitancy how we shall vote upon this bill? Can 
any one suppose that the Senator from Georgia, or the Senator from 
South Carolina, if they believed that the litigation that is proposed 
by this bill to be brought into the Judicial tribunals of the country 
would result contrary to their determination of what the law should 
be, that they would be in favor of such a bill as this? Does any 
one believe that if the Senator from Vermont could anticipate that 
the Supreme Court of the United States might decide that Congress, 
being silent upon the subject, had allowed Slavery to pass, at its 
pleasure, into these newly-acquired territories, and to become part of 
the municipal institutions of these territories, and to decide, also, 
that if Congress had enacted a prohibitory law, it could not have 
gone there, he would vote for this bill ? Certainly he would not. Is 
there any necessity that there should be a prohibitory law passed, in 
order that the question of Slavery should be presented with the aid 
of Congressional legislation to the Supreme Court of the United 
States? I will not undertake to say that I differ with the Senator 
from Vermont in a single legal proposition that he has laid down. I 
regard Slavery as a local institution. I believe it rests on that basis, 
as the only one that can give it a moment's security. I believe it 
can not be carried, by the power of the master over his servant, one 
inch beyond the territorial limits of the power that makes the law. 
I believe that a slave carried by his master into the territory about 
which we are talking, if Slavery be abolished there, will be free from 
the moment he enters the territory, and any attempt to exercise 
power over him as a slave will be nugatory. That is my judgment. 
But I would guard against any doubt on this aubject. I would so 
act that there should be nothing left undone on my part to prevent 
the admission of slaves, for I am free to declare that if you were to 



ON THE CLAYTON COMPROMISE BILL. 329 

acquire the country that lies under the hne, the hottest country to be 
found on the globe, where the white man is supposed not to be able 
to work, I would not allow you to take slaves there, if Slavery did 
not exist there already. More than that, I would abolish it if I could, 
if it did exist. These are my opinions, and they always have been 
the same. I know they were the opinions of Washington up to the 
hour of his death; and they were the opinions of Jefferson and of 
others, who, in the infancy of the institution, saw and deplored its 
evils, and deprecated it continuance, and would have taxed them- 
selves to the utmost to exterminate it then. I possess no opinion on 
the subject that I have not derived from these sources. 

I have only to say that these opinions have always received the 
concurrence of my own understanding, and this after the most care- 
ful investigation I have been able to give the subject. I find the 
institution of Slavery existing in several States of the Union — it is a 
local, a State institution, existing under the guarantees of the Con- 
stitution. I find that, as a legislator of this National Government, I 
am forbidden by the Constitution to act upon this or any other 
merely State institution. I can not, therefore, interfere with Slavery 
in the States as I can in a Taritoty, where, as yet, no State sov- 
ereignty exists, and as I will there, and would everywhere else on 
the face of the earth, where I am not forbidden, and where my 
power might extend. And here, sir, I ask, what has been your 
practice as a Government on this subject ? If at any time in your 
progress, since 1789, you have acquired territory where slavery 
existed in such form and consistency as to make it now difficult to 
overthrow it, it has been permitted, only permitted, to remain where 
by law it did exist; as in the Northwestern Territory before 1789, 
but had not taken deep root, it was expelled, and as in the Missouri 
Compromise, excluding it in all territory north of latitude 36° 30', 
after 1789. 

When Louisiana was acquired, such was the tone of public 
opinion then against Slavery that I am sure the men of that day would 
have abolished it there but for the supposed evil of displacing a sys- 
tem long-established, on which and by which the social and political 
systems of the country were necessarily formed. Perhaps, also, the 
terms of the treaty were with some an obstacle. The same men who 
directed public opinion in 1787 in a great measure controlled it in 
1804. Jefferson, who was the author of the Ordinance of 1787, 
was President in 1804, when Louisiana was acquired. By his influ- 



330 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

ence, the ordinance of 1787 made five free States in the northwest, and 
I doubt not Louisiana would have been also freed from slavery too 
but for the reasons I have assigned. Such were the views of men 
who directed public opinion tJien; would to God they, or such as 
they, had more to do with public opinion now. 

When the ample patrimony of Virginia was transferred to the 
Confederacy, Jefferson, and those of his school, who made this noble 
donation, at once declared that Slavery should not pollute the soil of 
five rich and powerful new States. Such was Virginian, such was 
American opinion then. I cannot suppose the opinions of these 
men were so changed between 1787 and 1804, that Slavery, at the 
latter period, would be spared by. them, except for the reasons I 
have assigned already. Liberty, perfect freedom to all men, of all 
colors and nations, was the doctrine of Jefferson then, and I am told 
he is now the authoritative expounder of free principles to the school 
calling itself "Virginian" as well as "Democratic." 

Why, there is scarcely a Virginian who ventures to have an 
opinion contrary to the lightest thought that he ever expressed. 
And is it so, that we are now to be required, for the sake of some 
imaginary balance of power, to carry Slavery into a country where it 
does not now exist? That, sir, is the question propounded by this 
bill. The Senator from Vermont is satisfied that Slavery cannot be 
extended to these Territories. I believe, if his confidence in the 
judicial tribunals of the country were well founded, that Slavery 
could not possibly go into these Territories, provided the Senate is 
right both as to law and the facts. I ask every member of the Sen- 
ate — perhaps I may be less informed than any — whether Slavery 
does not exist, by some Mexican law, at this hour, in California. 

Mr. Hannegan (in his seat). — It does exist. Peon Slavery exists there. 

I would thank the Senator from Indiana if he will inform me 
what Peon Slavery is ; and really I ask the question for the purpose 
of obtaining information. I desire to know its conditions. Is it 
transmissible by inheritance? Does the marvelous doctrine of which 
the honorable Senator from Virginia spoke, as being part and parcel 
of the law adopted in Virginia — part2ts scquitiir vcntran — prevail ? Is 
that holy ordinance, that the offspring of the womb of her who is a 
slave must necessarily be slaves also, there recognized ? 

Mr. Hannegan. — As I understand, slavery exists in California and New Mexico, as 
it does throughout the Republic of Mexico, and is termed Peon Slavery — slavery 



ON THE CLAYTON COMPROMISE BILL. 331 

for debt, by which the creditor has a right to hold the debtor, through all time, in a far 
more absolute bondage than that by which any Southern planter holds his slaves here. 

So it has been described to me. I have not seen the Mexican 
laws upon the subject; but the statement just made agrees with that 
of many gentlemen who profess to know something on the subject, 
and therefore I am inclined to think that it is so, and that these peo- 
ple are the subjects of that infernal law. The Senator from Dela- 
ware, the other day, informed us that the committee have not given 
to the people of California and New Mexico the right of suffrage, 
because they were incapable of exercising it — because a large por- 
tion of them were of the colored races. Now, supposing that to be 
the case, and supposing the proposition to be submitted to the 
Supreme Court of the United States — was Slavery an institution of 
New Mexico? — what would be the answer? If the Senator from 
Indiana were there to make response, he would reply in the affirma- 
tive ; he would say that the institution of Slavery was there ; that, to 
be sure, it had its modifications and peculiarities, but that it was still 
Slavery, though there might not have existed a law as strong as that 
glorious principle of free government spoken of by the Senator from 
Virginia — -partus sequitiir ventrcm. If, sir, these three Latin words 
can condemn to everlasting Slavery the posterity of a woman who is 
a slave, may not that municipal regulation of which we are now 
speaking in California and New Mexico, with equal propriety, be 
denominated Slavery? I find, then, Slavery, as it is called, existing 
here to a degree, and to all practical purposes, as lasting and inexor- 
able as in the State of Virginia; and, therefore, the whole of the 
hypothesis of the gentleman from Vermont falls to the ground as a 
matter of fact, inasmuch as the Supreme Court will decide that Slav- 
ery existed there, and that, therefore, the whole slave population of 
the United States may be transferred to that country. 

Mr. Phelps — The gentleman will excuse me — I spoke of African Slavery. 

Of that I am aware. I speak now of the general proposition. 
Now, this is a very curious spectacle presented this day and for 
weeks past in the American Congress, and one cannot help pausing 
at this point, and reflecting upon the events of the last few years. 
On looking back at what has happened in that period, I am sure that 
the magnanimous spirit of the Senator from South Carolina himself 
will be obliged to concede to the Northern States at least some apol- 
ogy for the slight degree of excitement on this subject. His 



332 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

hypothesis is, that to every portion of this newly-acquired territory 
— California not excepted — every slaveholder in the United States 
has a right to mij^rate to-morrow, and carry with him his slaves — 
holding them there forever, subject only to the abolition of Slavery 
when these Territories shall be made into States, and come into the 
Union. What, then, would be those few chapters in our history? 
We find ourselves now in the possession of Territories with a popu- 
lation of one hundred and fifty thousand souls, if I am correctly 
informed, in California and New Mexico. The best authenticated 
history of the social institutions of that population informs us that 
there exists there, at this moment, a species of Slavery as absolute 
and inexorable as exists anywhere on the face of the earth ; and that 
about five in six of the population of that country are subjected to 
the iron rule of this abominable institution there. 

Now, I do not expect that any man will rise up and say, that 
because an individual happens to be the debtor of another, he shall 
have his own person sold into Slavery ; and not only that, but that 
the curse shall extend — worse than that of the Hebrew, not to the 
third and fourth generation, but to the remotest posterity of that 
unfortunate man. Nobody will pretend to rise up in defense of such 
a proposition as that. Now, then, I will give over the criticism. 
Suppose there is a law in New Mexico which obliges a man to work 
all the days of his life for another, because he happens to owe him 
five dollars, by some means contrived by the creditor to keep him 
always his debtor. Do you intend that that law shall exist there 
for an hour? Well, you have made a law here, that your law- 
makers who are to go to New Mexico and California shall not touch 
the subject of Slavery; and if that which is designated, in the popu- 
lar language of that country. Slavery, exists there, do you indeed 
send abroad, as you promised to do, you missionary of liberty? 
You went there with the sword, and made it red in the blood of 
these people! What did you tell them? "We come to give you 
freedom!" Instead of that, you enact in your code here — bloody as 
that of Draco — that there shall be judges and law-givers over them, 
but that they shall make no law touching that Slavery to which five 
out of six of them are subjected. 

Mr. President, this chapter in your history furnishes instructive 
matter for our consideration. It is a strange act in the great drama 
of what we call progress. I have looked upon it with some concern. 
I was one of those who predicted that this, or something like this, 



ON THE CLAYTON COMPROMISE BILL. o.J.'J 

would be the result of your Mexican war. I always believed, not- 
withstanding your denials here, that you made war upon Mexico for 
the purpose and with the intention of conquest. I ventured to pre- 
dict just what we now see, that acquisition of territory would follow 
the war as its consequence, and its object was that and nothing else ; 
and that this very question would arise, and arise here, to distract 
your councils, disunite your people, and threaten, as we are now 
told it does, that peace which you thought of so lightly when war 
was so wantonly waged against Mexico. It now seems your preten- 
sions were all hypocritical from the beginning. You said your 
armed men went forth to her in the spirit of love. You pretended 
their mission was not conquest, but to set free the captive, to raise 
up the prostrate Peon of that country — and now what follows? As 
soon as your arms have subdued the country, the gentle note of the 
dove is changed to the lion's roar. Instead of the proper blessing 
of peace to your conquered subjects, you propose to leave the 
chains of the Peon untouched, and now gravely contend that negro 
Slavery shall be superadded to Slavery for debt. This is your 
improvement, this your progress in Mexico. To exalt the miserable 
Peon, you give him the enslaved negro for association and example. 
Sir, this is indeed a spectacle worth noting, in this bright noon of 
the nineteenth century. 

We proclaimed to the world we would take nothing by con- 
quest. This was our solemn hypocritical declaration for two dark 
years, while our progress was marked by blood, while the march of 
your power was like another people of old, by clouds of smoke in 
the day, and fire by night. City after city fell beneath the assaults 
of your gallant army, and still you ceased not to declare you would 
take nothing by conquest. Now you say this territory was con- 
quered, was acquired by the commoji blood of our common country. 
You trace back the consideration which you have paid for this coun- 
try to the blood and the bones of the gallant men that you sent 
there to be sacrificed ; and pointing to the unburied corses of her 
sons who have fallen there, the South exclaims — "These, these con- 
stitute my title to carry my slaves to that land ! It was purchased 
by the blood of my sons." The aged parent, bereft of his children, 
and the widow with the family that remains, desire to go there to 
better their fortunes, if it may be, and pointing to the graves of 
husband and children, exclaim, "There, there was the price paid for 
our proportion of this territory!" Is that true? If that could be 



334 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

made out — if you dare put that upon your record — if you can assert 
that you hold the country by the strong hand, then you have a right 
to go there with your slaves. If we of the North have united with 
you of the South in an expedition of piracy, and robbery, and mur- 
der, that oldest law known among men — "Honesty among thieves" 
— requires us to divide it with you equally. 

If, indeed, Mr. President, we have no other right than that 
which force gives us to these our new possessions; if indeed, we 
have slaughtered fifty thousand of God's creatures only to subject to 
our power one hundred and fifty thousand of an alien, enslaved and 
barbarous people, it is but a fitting finale to all this to rivet yet closer 
the chain of personal slavery upon the Mexican Peon, and people 
your possessions thus acquired by slaves. I repeat, that this right 
of conquest applied to territory is the same — no other and no bet- 
ter than that by which originally one man could claim to hold 
another in slavery. It is but the right, if right it may be called, of 
the strongest — the law in both cases is simply the law of force. 
You march over a country, wrest it by war from its owner, and say 
to the vanquished possessor, this is now mine. I have seized your 
property; I hold it by the law of force. And so originally the 
slave-dealer seized the negro in his African home, slaughtered in 
combat part of his family, bound the rest in chains, brought them 
here and sold them. It is simply poiver, and not light, in both cases, 
that makes the claim. I repeat, it seems indeed fitting and in char- 
acter, that the two should accompany each other. 

As in the case of la7tds thus acquired, long possession and con- 
tinued acquiescence (in the judgments of men) ripen the claim into 
legal right, so in the case of legal Slavery, the captive, originally held 
only by force, in time, by the law of men, and by the judgment of 
men, becomes p7vpaiy ! ! And we are told by the Senator from Vir- 
ginia [Mr. Mason] that the posterity of such become property 
only through the magical influence of these words, Roman words: 
*' Partus scqiiitiir venUeni'' — "The child follows the condition of its 
mother." Admirable — philosophical — rational — Christian maxim!!! 
If the mother be captured in war, it seems then the will of a just 
God, "whose tender mercies are over all his works," that her off- 
spring to the remotest time shall be doomed to Slavery. What sub- 
lime morality ! what lovely justice combine to sanctify this article in 
that new decalogue of freedom which we say it is our destiny to give 
to the world, ^'Partus scqiiitiir ventrcmr Why, it is said to be 



ON THE CLAYTON COMPROMISE BILL. 335 

*^ common law." Alas, Mr. President, it is but too ^'co7nmon,'' as we 
see. This right of conquest over land is the same as that by which 
a man may hold another in bondage. You may make it into a law 
if you please ; you may enact that it may be so ; it may be conven- 
ient to do so ; after perpetrating the original sin, it may be well to 
do so. But the case is not altered ; the source of the right remains 
unchanged. What is the meaning of the old Roman word servus"? 
I profess no skill in philological learning, but I can very well con- 
ceive how somebody, looking into this thing, might understand what 
was the law in those days. The man's life was saved when his 
•enemy conquered him in battle. He became scrims — the man pre- 
served by his magnanimous foe; and perpetual Slavery was then 
thought to be a boon preferable to death. That was the way in 
which Slavery began. Has anybody found out on the face of the 
earth a man fool enough to give himself up to another, and beg him 
to make him a slave? I do not know of one such instance under 
heaven. Yet it may be so. Still, I think that not one man of our 
complexion, of the Caucasian race, could be found quite willing 
to do that. 

Thus far we have been brought after having fought for this 
country and conquered it. The solemn appeal is made to us — 
"Have we not mingled our blood with yours in acquiring this coun- 
try?" But did we mingle our blood with yours for the purpose of 
wresting this country by force from this people? That is the ques- 
tion. You did not say so six months ago. You dare not say so 
now ! You may say that it was purchased, as Louisiana or as Florida 
was, with the common treasure of the country ; and then we come to 
the discussion of another proposition : What right do you acquire to 
establish Slavery there ? But I was about to ask of some gentlemen 
— the Senator from South Carolina, for instance — whose eye at a 
glance has comprehended the history of the world, what he supposes 
will be the impression abroad of our Mexican war, and these our 
Mexican acquisitions, if we should give to them the direction which 
he desires? I do not speak of the propriety of slave labor being 
carried anywhere. I will waive that question entirely. What is it 
of which the Senator from Vermont has told us this morning, and of 
which we have heard so much during the last three weeks? And 
how will OKr history read by the side of that ? Every gale that floats 
across the Atlantic comes freighted with the death-groans of a king; 
every vessel that touches your shores bears with her tidings that the 



336 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

captives of the Old World are at last becoming free — that they are 
seeking, through blood and slaughter — blindly and madly, it may be 
— but nevertheless resolutely — deliverance from the fetters that have 
held them in bondage. Who are they? Almost the whole of 
Europe. And it is only about a year ago, I believe, that the officer 
of the Turkish empire who holds sway in Tunis — one of the old 
slave markets of the world, whose prisons formerly received those of 
our people taken upon the high seas and made slaves to their cap- 
tors — announced to the world that all should there be free. And, if 
I am not mistaken, it will be found that this magic line which the 
Senator from South Carolina believes has been drawn around the 
globe which we inhabit, with the view of separating Freedom and 
Slavery — 36° 30' — brings this very Tunis into that region in which 
some suppose, by ordinance of nature, men are to be held in 
bondage ! All over the world the air is vocal with the shouts of 
men made free. What does it all mean ? It means that they have 
been redeemed from political servitude ; and in God's name I ask, if 
it be a boon to mankind to be free from political servitude, must it 
not be accepted as a matter of some gratulation that they have been 
relieved from personal servitude — absolute subjection to the arbitrary 
power of others ? What do we say of them ? I am not speaking of 
the propriety of this thing; it may be all wrong, and these poor 
fellows in Paris, who have stout hands and willing hearts, anxious to 
earn their bread, may be very unreasonable in fighting for it. It 
may be all wrong to cut off the head of a king or send him across 
the Channel. It may be highly improper and foolish in Austria to 
send away Metternich, and say, "We will look into this business 
ourselves." According to the doctrine preached in these halls — 
in free America — instead of sending shouts of gratulation across 
the water to these people, we should send to them groans and com- 
miseration for their folly, calling on them to be aware how they 
take this business into their own hands — informing them that uni- 
versal liberty is a curse ; that as one man is born with a right to gov- 
ern an empire, he and his posterity must continue to exercise that 
power, because in this case it is not exactly pm'tus seqiiiUir vcntrem, 
but partus sequihir patrem — that is all the difference. The crown fol- 
lows the father ! Under your law, the chain follows the mother ! 

Sir, we may, we ought to remember, that it was law in this 
country in 1776, that kings had a right to rule us — did rule us. 
George III. said then ^'parttis sequitur patrem," my son inherits my 



ON THE CLAYTON COMPROMISE BILL. 337 

crown, "he follows the condition of the father," "he is born to be 
your ruler;" your fathers said, this is not true, this shall be law no 
longer. Let us look for a moment at the doings of that good old 
time, 1776. TJicn, sir, our fathers, being oppressed, lifted up their 
hands and appealed to the God of justice, the common Father of all 
men, to deliver them and their posterity from that law, which pro- 
claimed that "kings were born to rule." They (the men of 1776) 
did not believe that one man was born "booted and spurred" to ride 
another. And if, as they said, no man was born to I'tile another, did 
it not follow, that no man could rightfully be born to serve another? 
Sir, in those days, Virginia and Virginia's sons, Washington and Jef- 
ferson, had as little respect for that maxim, partus sequitiir venhem, 
as for that other cognate dogma, "Kings are born to rule." I infer 
from our history, sir, that the men of that day were sincere men, 
earnest, honest men, that they meant what they said. From their 
declaration, "«// men are born equally free," I infer that, in their 
judgments, no man, by the lazv of his nature, was born to be a slave; 
and, therefore, he ought not by any other law to be born a slave. I 
think this maxim of kings being born to rule, and others being born 
only to serve, are both of the same family, and ought to have gone 
down to the same place whence I imagine they came, long ago, 
together. I do not think that your partus sequitur ventrem had much 
quarter shown it at Yorktown on a certain day you may remember. 
I think that when the lion of England crawled in the dust, beneath 
the talons of your eagles, and Cornwallis surrendered to George 
Washington, that maxim, that a man is born to rule, went down, not 
to be seen among us again forever ; and I think that partus sequitur 
ventrem, in the estimation of all sensible men, should have disap- 
peared along with it. So the men of that day thought. And we 
are thus brought to the proper interpretation of the language of 
those men which has been criticised by the Senator from South 
Carolina. 

Mr. President, it is worth while to inquire what were the pub- 
licly expressed opinions of the leading men and States, as to the 
policy of Negro Slavery, from the year 1774 up to the year 1787, 
and from thence up to the final adoption of the Constitution, in 
1789. And, first, how was it in the old commonwealth, Virginia? 

"June, 1774 — At a general meeting of the freeholders and inhabitants of Prince 
George's county, Virginia, the following resolves were unanimously agreed to (among 
others): 

23 



338 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

" Resolved, That the African trade is injurious to this Colony; obstructs the pop- 
ulation of it by freemen, prevents manufacturers and other useful emigrants ffom 
Europe from settling among us, and occasions an annual increase of the balance of trade 
against this Colony." — (See American Archives, 4th series, vol. I, p. 493). 

" At a meeting of the freeholders and other inhabitants of the county of Culpeper, 
in Virginia, assembled on due notice, at the Court-House of the said county, on Thurs- 
day, the 7th of July, 1774, to consider of the most effectual method to preserve the 
rights and liberties of America : 

I "Resolved, That the importing of slaves and convict servants is injurious to this 

Colony, as it obstructs the population of it with freemen and useful manufacturers ; 
and that we will not buy any such slave or convict servant hereafter to be imported." 
— (American Archives, 4th series, vol. I, p. 523.) 

"At a general meeting of the freeholders and inhabitants of the county of Nanse- 
mond, Virginia, on the lith day of July, 1774, the following resolutions were unani- 
mously agreed to: 

"Resolved, That the African trade is injurious," etc., [same as the resolution of 
Prince George's county.] — (American Archives, vol. i, p. 530.) 

"July 14, 1774, at a similar meeting in Caroline county, Virginia: 

"Resolved, That the African trade is injurious to this Colony, etc.; and, there- 
fore, that the purchase of all imported slaves ought to be associated against. "-(lb, p. 541.) 

"July 16, 1774, at a meeting of Surrey county, Virginia: 

"5th, Resolved, That, as the population of this Colony with freemen and useful 
manufacturers is greatly obstructed by the importations of slaves and convict servants, 
we will not purchase any such slaves or servants hereafter to be imported." — (American 
Archives, 4th series, vol. i, p. 593. 

"At a general meeting of the freeholders and other inhabitants of the county of 
Fairfax, Virginia, at the Court-House in the town of Alexandria, on Monday, the iSth 
of July, 1774, George Washington, Esq., in the chair: 

"Resolved, That it is the opinion of this meeting, that, during our present diffi- 
culties and distress, no slaves ought to be imported into any of the British Colonies on 
this continent ; and we take this opportunity of declaring our most earnest wishes to 
see an entire stop forever put to such a wicked, cruel and unnatural trade. 

"Resolved, That it is the opinion of this meeting that a solemn covenant and 
association should be entered into by all the Colonies," etc., etc. — American Archives, 
vol. I, p. 600. 

George Washington, Mr. President, was the presiding officer at 
one of these meetings. Certain young men here may have Jicard 
something of this George Washington ! He was then a farmer of 
Fairfax. What he did after that meeting, shall be known, remem- 
bered and revered by a world thousands of years to come, long after 
you and I, and all of us, have been food for worms. 

Similar meetings were held, and similar resolutions passed, in 
the following counties in Virginia: In Hanover, on the 20th July, 
1774; in Princess Ann, in July of the same year. I extract from 
the same volume of American Archives the following, which, from 
Mr. Jefferson's connection with it, becomes important. 

At a very full meeting of delegates from the different counties 



ON THE CLAYTON COMPROMISE BILL. ;339 

in the Colony and Dominion of Virginia, begun "in Williamsburg, 
the 1st day of August, 1774, the following association was unani- 
mously agreed to;" I omit, Mr. President, all not bearing upon the 
subject of Slavery, and quote only the following: 

"We will not ourselves import, nor purchase any slave or slaves 
imported by any other person, after the first day of November next, 
either from Africa, the West Indies, or any other place.'" It seems 
Mr. Jefferson was a delegate to this Convention, but was prevented 
by sickness from attending. He, however, addressed a letter to the 
Convention, which I commend to the especial attention of gentlemen 
from the South, who object so strongly to the expression of opinions 
as to Slavery here. Mr. Jefferson, in one paragraph in his letter to 
the Convention, writes thus, on the subject of Negro Slavery: "The 
abolition of Slavery is the present object of desire in these Colonies, 
where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state." Mark 
these words, Mr. President. He complains that Slavery was intro- 
duced into our American Colonies in their '^infant state." Would 
Mr. Jefferson, were he here to-day, send Slavery to the infant colo- 
nies of Oregon, New Mexico and California? But Mr. Jefferson 
goes on to say: "But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves 
we have, it is necessary to exclude all further importations from 
Africa ; but our repeated attempts to effect this by prohibitions, and 
by imposing duties which might amount to prohibition, have hith- 
erto been defeated by His Majesty's negative, thus preferring the 
immediate advantage of a few African corsairs to the lasting interest 
of the American States, and to the rights of human nature, deeply 
wounded by this infamous practice." 

Here we see proofs undeniable that Mr. Jefferson, the leading 
spirit then, confidently anticipated, not the continuance and further 
extension ot Slavery, but its abolition ; and in order to the speedy 
"enfranchisement" of the slaves then in Virginia, he desires to pre- 
vent their augmentation, by prohibiting their importation. He com- 
plains that Slavery was prejudicial to the ''infant" Colony of Vir- 
ginia. Were he here, would he not vote to exclude Slavery from 
the ''infant" Colonies of Oregon, New Mexico and California? We 
have seen that he drafted the clause against Slavery in the Ordinance 
of 1787. We know he remained unchanged till his death. 

How stood public opinion, Mr. President, in the year 1775, in 
the State of Georgia ? From the proceedings of a patriotic associa- 



340 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

tion in Georgia at that time, called the " Darien Committee," I take 
the following: 

" We, therefore, the Representatives of the extensive district of Darien, in the 
Colony of Georgia, having now assembled in Congress, by authority and free choice of 
the inhabitants of the said district, now freed from their fetters, do resolve: 

" 5. To show the world that we are not influenced by any contracted or interested 
motives, but a general philanthrophy for all mankind, of whatever climate, language 
or complexion, we hereby declare our disapprobation and abhorrence of the unnatural 
practice of Slavery in America (however the uncultivated state of our country, or other 
specious arguments may plead for), a practice founded in injustice and cruelty, and 
highly dangerous to our liberties (as well as lives), debasing part of our fellow-crea- 
tures below men, and corrupting the virtue and morals of the rest; and as laying the 
basis of that liberty we contend for (and which we pray the Almighty to continue to 
the latest posterity) upon a very wrong foundation. We, therefore, resolve at all times 
to use our utmost endeavors for the manumission of our slaves in this Colony, upon the 
most safe and equitable footing for the masters and themselves." — American Archives, 
vol. I, p. 1 136. 

From these papers, as well as the general history of the times, 
we can see what the fathers thought on this subject. May I not, 
with profound respect, suggest that these papers, dated in 1774 and 
1775, explain to us the meaning of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, adopted in 1776. Surely the men who voted the foregoing 
resolutions in 1775 might, very consistently, in 1776, declare as they 
did — "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men were 
created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain 
inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness." Well might these men, with their hearts purified 
from selfishness by the dreadful conflict which then was seen to be 
inevitable, feel that all men were equal before God, in whom alone 
they could trust for aid in that dark hour, and that therefore all men 
were or ought to be masters ol themselves, and answerable only to 
the Creator for the use they should make of that liberty — well might 
those brave, good old men, after such a declaration, look up calmly 
and hopefully to the heavens and declare: "And for the support of 
this declaration, with a firm reliance on the ptotection of Divine Ptovi- 
dence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and 
our sacred honor." 

Mr. President, these men, when they spoke of Slavery and its 
extension, did not get up some hybrid sort of "compromise," and 
consult some supreme court. They declared Slavery an evil, a 
wrong, a prejudice to free colonies, a social mischief and a political 
evil; and if these were denied, they replied, "These truths are self- 
evident." And for the judgment of men they appealed to no 



ON THE CLAYTON COMPROMISE BILL. 341 

earthly court; they took an appeal "to the Supreme Judge of the 
world." When lam asked to extend to this new Empire of ours, 
now in its infancy, an institution which they pronounced an evil to 
all communities; when I refuse to agree with some here whose judg- 
ments I revere, and whose motives I know to be pure, I can only 
say, I stand where our fathers stood of old, I am sustained in my 
position by the men who founded the first system of rational liberty 
on the earth. With them by my side, I can afford to differ with 
those here whom I respect. With such authority for my conduct, I 
can cheerfully encounter the frowns of some, the scorn of all ; I can 
turn to the fathers of such and be comforted. They knew what was 
best for an infant people just struggling into existence. If their 
opinions are worth anything — if the opinions of the venerated men 
are to be considered as authority — I ask Southern gentlemen what 
they mean when they ask me to extend Slavery to the distant shores 
of the Pacific Ocean, and the slave trade between Maryland and Vir- 
ginia and that almost unknown country? 

I am considering the propriety of doing this thing as if the 
question were now for the first time presented to us. I ask any 
Southern man, if there were not a slave on this continent, would you 
send your ships to Africa and bring them here ? Suppose this Con- 
federation of ours had been formed before a slave existed in it, and 
suppose here, in the year of grace 1848, you had acquired California 
and New Mexico, and you were told that there existed a modified 
system of Slavery there, and that they wanted laborers there, would 
a Senator rise in his place and say, we will authorize the African slave 
trade, in order to introduce laborers into our infant colonies ? If you 
would not bring them from the shores of Africa — buying them with 
some imagined ^'pafius sequitur ventteni" branded on them some- 
where, how can you prove to me that it would be right to transfer 
them from Maryland or Virginia, three thousand miles, to the shores 
of the Pacific? If Slavery were a curse to you in the beginning, 
but struck its roots so deep into your social and municipal system, 
as was then said, that it could not be eradicated entirely, how is it 
that you call upon me, as a matter of conscience and duty, to trans- 
fer this curse to an area of square miles greatly exceeding that of 
the thirteen States, when the Confederation was formed? If it is so 
that it is an evil — and so all you statesmen have pronounced it, and 
so all your eminent men, with the exception of a few in modern 
times, have regarded it — how is it that you call upon me to extend 



342 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

it to those vast dominions which you have recently acquired? Is it 
true that I am obliged to receive into my family a man with the 
small-pox or the leprosy, that they may be infected? I know you 
do not consider it in that light now. But the gentleman from Virginia 
has said that it must be done. Why? Because it is compassion to 
the slave. He cannot be nurtured in Virginia; your lands are worn 
out. Sir, that statement sounded ominous in my ears. It gave rise 
to some reflection. Why are your lands worn out? Are the lands 
of Pennsylvania worn out? Are those of Connecticut worn out? 
Is not Massachusetts more productive to-day than when the foot of 
the white man was first impressed upon her soil? Your lands are 
worn out, because the slave has turned pale the land wherever he 
has set down his black foot ! It is slave-labor that has done all this. 
And must we then extend to these territories that which produces 
sterility wherever it is found, till barren desolation shall cover the 
whole land ? If you can call upon me, as a matter of compassion, 
to send the slave to California or Oregon, you can call upon me by 
the same sacred obligation to receive him into Ohio as a slave ; and I 
would be just as much bound, as a citizen of Ohio, to say that the 
Constitution should be so construed as to admit slaves there, because 
they have made the land in Virginia barren, and they and their mas- 
ters were perishing, till Ohio had also become a wilderness. That 
reason will not do. Sensitive as Ohio may appear to the morbid 
benevolence spoken of — with which I have no sympathy at all — we 
can see through that — the citizens of Ohio cannot accept these men 
upon such terms. 

What is there in the way, then, of my giving an intelligent vote 
on this subject? Nothing at all. I would take this bill in a mo- 
ment, if I had faith in the processes through which that law is to 
pass until it becomes a law in the Chamber below. But I have not 
that faith, and I will tell the gentlemen why. It is a sad commen- 
tary upon the perfection of human reason, that with but a very few 
exceptions, gentlemen coming from a slave State — and I think I have 
one behind me who ought always to be before me — [ Mr. Badger} 
with a very few exceptions, all eminent lawyers on this floor from 
that section of the country, have argued that you have no right to 
prohibit the introduction of Slavery into Oregon, California and New 
Mexico; while, on the other hand, there is not a man, with few 
exceptions (and some highly respectable), in the free States, learned 
or unlearned, clerical or lay, who has any pretentions to legal knowl- 



ON THE CLAYTON COMPROMISE BILL. 343 

edge, but believes in his conscience that you have a right to pro- 
hibit Slavery. Is not that a curious commentary upon that wonder- 
ful thing called human reason ? 

Mr. Underwood. — It is regulated by a line. 

Yes, by 36° 30', and what is black on one side of the line is 
white on the other, turning to jet black again when restored to its 
original locality. How is that? Can I have confidence in the 
Supreme Court of the United States, when my confidence fails in 
Senators around me here ? Do I expect that the members of that 
body will be more careful than the Senators from Georgia and South 
Carolina to form their opinions without any regard to selfish consid- 
erations ? Can I suppose that either of these gentlemen, or the gen- 
tleman from Georgia on the other side of the Chamber [Mr. John- 
son], or the learned Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Davis], who 
thought it exceedingly wrong that we should attempt to restrain the 
Almighty in the execution of his purposes, as revealed to us by 
Noah — can I suppose that these Senators, with all the terrible 
responsibilities which press upon us when engaged in legislating for 
a whole empire, came to their conclusions without the most anxious 
deliberation? And yet on one side of the line, in the slave States, 
the Constitution reads Yea, while on the other, after the exercise of 
an equal degree of intelligence, calmness and deliberation, in the free 
States the Constitution is made to read Nay. 

I admire the Supreme Court of the United States as a tribunal. 
I admire the wisdom which contrived it. I rejoice in the good con- 
sequences to this Republic from the exercise of its functions. I also 
revere the Senate of the United States. Here is the most august 
body in the world, they say, composed of men who have wasted the 
midnight oil from year to year — men who in cloisters, in courts, in 
legislative halls, have been reaping the fruits of ripe experience, and 
suddenly their mighty intellects, able to scan everything, however 
minute, and comprehend everything, however grand, utterly fail 
them, and they kneel down in dumb insignificance, and implore the 
Supreme Court to read the Constitution for them. I think the Sen- 
ator from South Carolina must have had some new light upon the 
subject within the last few years, and that several of my Democratic 
friends on all sides of the Chamber must have been smitten with new 
love for the power and wisdom of the Supreme Court. Do you 
remember the case adverted to by the Senator from New Jersey 



344 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

to-day? I recollect very well when we did not stop to inquire how 
the Supreme Court had decided or ordained. It had decided, with 
John Marshall at its head — a man whose lightest conjectures upon 
the subject of constitutional law have always had with me as much 
weight as the well-considered opinion of almost any other man — 
that Congress had power to establish just such a bank as you had ; 
but with what definite scorn did Democratic gentlemen — ^Jackson 
Democrats, as they chose to be called — curl their lips when referred 
to that decision of the Supreme Court. Then the cry was, "We 
are judges for ourselves; we make no law unless we have the power 
to enact it." Now, however, the doctrine is, that here is one only 
tribunal competent to put the matter at rest forever. We are to 
thank God, that though all should fail, there is an infallible deposi- 
tory of truth, and it lives once a year for three months, in a little 
chamber below us ! We can go there. Now, I understand my duty 
here to be to ascertain what constitutional power we have ; and when 
I have ascertained that I act without reference to what the Supreme 
Court may do — for they have yet furnished no guide on the subject 
— we are to take it for granted that they will concur with us. I 
agree with gentlemen who have been so lofty in their encomiums 
upon that Court, that their decision, whether right or wrong, con- 
trols our action. But we have not hitherto endeavored to ascertain 
what the Supreme Court would do. I wish next to ascertain in 
what mode this wonderful response is to be obtained — not from the 
Delphic Oracle, but from that infallible divinity, the Supreme Court. 
How is it to be done? A gentleman starts from Baltimore, in 
Maryland, with a dozen black men, who have been slaves ; he takes 
them to California, three thousand miles off. Now, I don't know 
how it may be in other parts of the world, but I know that in the 
State of Ohio we do not travel three thousand miles to get justice. 
What, then, is the admirable contrivance in this bill by which we can 
get at the meaning of the Constitution ? It seems the meaning of 
the Constitution is to be forever hidden from us until light shall be 
given by the Supreme Court. Sir, this bill seems to me a rich and 
rare legislative curiosity. It does not enact "a law," which I had 
supposed the usual function of legislation. No, sir ; it only enacts 
**a law-suit." So we virtually enact that, when the Supreme Court 
say we can make law, then we Jiave made it ! 

But, sir, to have a fair trial of this question, so as to make it 
effectual to keep slaves out of our Territory, all must admit this trial 



ON THE CLAYTON COMPROMISE BILL. 345 

should be had before slaves have become numerous there. If Slav- 
ery goes there and remains there for one year, according to all 
experience, it is eternal. Let it but plant its roots there, and the 
next thing you will hear will be earnest appeals about the rights of 
property. It will be said: "The Senate did not ssy we had no 
tight to come here. The House of Representatives, a body of gentle- 
men elected from all parts of the country, on account of their sagac- 
ity and legal attainments, did not prohibit us from coming here. I 
thought I had a right to come here ; the Senator from South Carolina 
said I had a right to come ; the honorable Senator from Georgia said 
I had a right to come here ; his colleague said it was a right secured 
to me somewhere high up in the clouds, and not belonging to the 
Avorld ; the Senator from Mississippi said it was the ordinance from 
Heaven, sanctified by decrees and revealed through prophecy — am I 
not, then, to enjoy the privileges thus so fully secured to me? I 
have property here ; several of my women have borne children, who 
have partus sequitii} ventfem born with them — they are my property." 
Thus the appeal will be made to their fellow-citizens around them; 
and it will be asked whether you are prepared to strike down the 
property which the settler in those Territories has thus acquired? 
That will be the case, unless the negro from Baltimore, when he gets 
there and sees Peons there — slaves not by hereditary taint, but by a 
much better title, a verdict before a justice of the peace — should deter- 
mine to avail himself of the admirable facilities afforded him by this 
bill for gaining his freedom. Suppose my friend from New Hamp- 
shire, when he goes home, gets up a meeting and collects a fund for 
the purpose of sending a missionary after these men ; and when 
the missionary arrives there, he proposes to hold a prayer-meeting ; 
he gets up a meeting, as they used to do in Yankee times, "for the 
improvement of gifts." He goes to the negro quarter of this gen- 
tleman from Baltimore, and says : * ' Come, I want this brother ; it is 
true he is a son of Ham, but I want to instruct him that he is free." 
I am very much inclined to think that the missionary would fare very 
much as one did in South Carolina, at the hands of him from Balti- 
more. This bill supposes the negro is to start all at once into a free 
Anglo-Saxon in California — the blood of Liberty flowing in every 
vein, and its divine impulses throbbing in his heart. He is to say: 
' ' I am free ; I am a Californian ; I bring the right of habeas cor pits 
with me." At last he is brought up on 2i "wnt o{ habeas corpus — 
before whom ? Very likely one of those gentlemen who have been 



346 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN . 

proclaiming that Slavery has a right to go there ; for such are the 
men that Mr. Polk is likely to appoint. He has prejudged the case. 
On the faith of his opinion the slave has been brought there — what 
can he do? There is his recorded judgment printed in your Con- 
gressional Report — what will he say? "You are a slave. Mr. Cal- 
houn was right. Judge Berrien, of Georgia, a profound lawyer, 
whom I knew well, was right. I know these gentlemen well ; their 
opinion is entitled to the highest authority ; and in the face of it, it 
does not become me to say that you are free — so, boy, go to your 
master; you belong to the class partus sequitiir vcnh'cin; you are not 
quite enough of a Saxon!" What, then, is to be done by this bill? 
Oh ! a writ of error or appeal can come to the Supreme Court of the 
United States. How ? The negro, if he is to be treated like a white 
man, taking out an appeal, must give bonds in double the value of 
the subject matter in dispute. And what is that? If you consider 
it the mercantile value of the negro, it may be perhaps $1,000 or 
$2,000. But he cannot have the appeal according to this bill, unless 
the value of the thing in controversy amounts to the value of 
$2,000. But, then, there comes in this ideality of personal lib- 
erty. What is it worth ? Nothing at all — says the Senator from 
South Carolina — to this fellow, who is better without it. And under 
this complexity of legal quibbling and litigation, it is expected that 
the negro will stand there and contend with his master, and coming 
on to Washington, will prosecute his appeal two years before the 
Supreme Court, enjoying the opportunity of visiting his old friends 
about Baltimore ! 

And now, Mr. President, if we have found upon the opinions of 
wise ones of old, upon the observations of past and present time, 
that involuntary Slavery is not useful, profitable, or beneficial to 
either master or slave, that such institutions only become tolerable, 
because, when long established, the evil is less than those conse- 
quences which would follow their sudden change, I think it will be 
admitted that we should prohibit involuntary servitude in the terri- 
tories over which we have control. 

Here, then, the question arises, have we this prohibitory power? 
I have already said, that where the Supreme Court of the United 
States has solemnly adjudged any power to belong to any branch of 
this Government, such adjudication should, until overruled, have 
great, if not controlling, weight with Congress. What, then, are 
the adjudications of that court upon this point? I quote from the 



ON THE CLAYTON COMPROMISE BILL. 347 

case so often referred to, American Insurance Company vs. Carter 
(1st Peters' Reports, page 511). On page 542 of that case, the 
court says: "The Constitution confers absolutely on the Govern- 
ment of the Union the powers of making war, and of making treaties. 
Consequently, that Government possesses the power of acquiring 
territory, either by conquest or treaty." Again, on the same page, 
the right to make law for a territory is thus spoken of: "Perhaps 
the power of governing a territory of the United States, which has 
not, by becoming a State, acquired the means of self-government, 
may result necessarily from the fact that it is not within the jurisdic- 
tion of any particular State, and is within the power and jurisdic- 
tion of the United States. The right to govern may be the inevita- 
ble consequence of the right to acquire territory ; but which ever may 
be the source whence the power is derived, the possession of it is 
unqtiesiiofied." 

Nothing can be clearer or more satisfactory on this point. 
While this doctrine conforms to the plain dictates of reason, it is sat- 
isfactory to know that the principle has been strengthened by the 
uniform practice under the Constitution. The latter class of cases is 
too numerous to permit even a reference to them all. They have 
been frequently adverted to in this debate, and therefore I need not 
again bring them to the attention of the Senate. I therefore find the 
power of Congress to make law for a territory absolute and unlim- 
ited. I have only to consider whether a law prohibiting Slavery, in 
a territory where Slavery does not already exist, is sound policy for 
such territory. 

Now, if we can make any law whatever, not contrary to the 
express prohibitions of the Constitution, we can enact that a man 
with $60,000 worth of bank-notes of Maryland shall forfeit the whole 
amount if he attempts to pass one of them in the Territory of Cali- 
fornia. We may say if a man carry a menagerie of wild beasts 
there worth $500,000, and undertakes to exhibit them there, he shall 
forfeit them. The man comes back with his menagerie, and says 
that the law forbade him to exhibit his animals there ; it was thought 
that, as an economical arrangement, such things should not be toler- 
ated there. That you may do : he of the lions and tigers goes back, 
having lost his whole concern. But now you take a slave to Cali- 
fornia, and instantly your power fails; all the power of the sover- 
eignty of this country is impotent to stop him. That is a strange 
sort of argument to me. It has always been considered that when a 



348 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

State forms its constitution it can exclude Slavery. Why so? 
Because it chances to consider it an evil. If it be a proper subject 
of legislation in a State, and we have absolute legislative power 
transferred to us by virtue of this bloody power of conquest, as 
some say, or by purchase as others maintain, I ask — why may we 
not act ? Again ; considering this as an abstract question, are there 
not duties devolving upon us, for the performance of which we may 
not be responsible to any earthly tribunal, but for which God who 
has created us all will hold us accountable? What is your duty, 
above all others, to a conquered people? You say it is your duty 
to give them a Government — may you not, then, do everything for 
them which you are not forbidden to do by some fundamental axio- 
matic truth at the foundation of your constitution ? Show me, then, 
how your action is precluded, and I submit. Though I believe it 
ought to be otherwise, yet, if the Constitution of my country for- 
bids me, I yield. The constitutions of many States declare Slavery 
to be an evil. Southern gentlemen have said that they w^ould have 
done away with it if possible, and they have apologized to the world 
and to themselves for the existence of it in their States. These hon- 
est old men of another day never could have failed to strike off 
the chains from every negro in the Colonies, if it had been possible 
for them to do so without upturning the foundations of society. 

I do not revive these things to wound the feelings of gentlemen. 
I know some of them consider this institution as valuable ; but many 
of them, I also know, regard it as an evil. But Slavery is not in 
Oregon, it is not in California ; and when I find that you have tram- 
pled down the people in order to extend your dominion over them, I 
feel it to be my duty, when you appeal to me to make laws for them 
and the Supreme Court has said that I have the power to do so, to 
avert from them this evil of Slavery, and establish free institutions, 
under which no man can say that another is his property. I do not 
doubt this power. I know that it has been considered of old, from 
1787 till the present hour, to be vested in Congress. The judicial 
tribunals in the West have considered it so, and the Supreme Court 
of the United States have said in that decision, so often referred to, 
that it was so. Have they found any restrictions upon us? No. 
And what would you do if you were in Oregon to-day, and it were a 
State? What would you do, and you, and you? Would any man 
here, if he were acting in a legislative capacity, say, "I feel myself 
bound to admit this evil into this country, for the benefit of some of 



ON THE CLAYTON COMPROMISE BILL. 349 

the States who are overburdened with slaves." If this were true, it 
would be the duty of the free States, in that fraternal spirit which 
ought to prevail between the various States of the Union, to admit 
slaves whenever the slave States became overburdened with them. 
Do we so act in legislating for our States? No; we say, "enjoy 
your slaves, or free them, as you will, but it is our wish that there 
shall be no Slavery here." You may implore a State, if you will, 
to take slaves into its bosom for your convenience, but they do not 
feel themselves bound by any Government obligation to do it. Am 
I not, then, bound to lay the foundations of that State for whose 
future progress I am to be responsible, in the way which I think the 
most likely to produce beneficial results to the people there ? And 
when I find myself possessed of this power, and clothed with com- 
mensurate responsibility, no threats of dissolution of the Union, no 
heartburnings here or there, and, least of all — that which we have 
heard much of out of doors — the coming Presidential election, shall 
deter me from pursuing this course. I am for making a law, in the 
language of the Ordinance of 1787; I would have it enacted that 
Slavery shall never exist in that country. Then, when my black 
man comes to the Supreme Court of the United States, as provided 
in this bill, he comes with a positive law in his favor, that court must 
overrule the decision of the case in Peters, or else such appeal must 
be sustained. Then we will have acted upon the subject — we will 
have forbidden Slavery. I observed that some gentlemen who han- 
dled this subject, were very careful to repeat, with emphasis, that 
Slavery may go where it is not prohibited. That is the reason I pre- 
fer the Ordinance of 1787 to the so-called Compromise Bill. I have 
no doubt that every Senator who assented to that bill convinced him- 
self that it was the best we could pass. I have no doubt that our 
friends from the North thought it would be effective in preventing 
Slavery in these territories. But I see that the Senator from South 
Carolina does not think so. He supports the bill for the very reason 
that it will admit Slavery ; the Senator from Vermont, for the reason 
that Slavery is forbidden by it. Now, in this confusion of ideas, I 
desire that Congress, if it have any opinion, express it. 

If we have any power to legislate over these Territories, how 
long would it take to write down the sixth article of the Ordinance 
of 1787? Those of us who think that ought to be a fundamental 
law in the organization of Territories, will vote for it; and those of 
us who believe otherwise, will vote against it ; and whichever party 



350 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

triumphs, will give law to Oregon and California, bearing the respon- 
sibility. But I must say that I do not like what appears to me — I 
say it in no offensive sense — a shuffling off the responsibility which 
is upon us now, and which we cannot avoid. The Supreme Court 
may overrule our decision ; but if we think we have power to ordain 
that Slavery shall not exist in that Territory, let us say so ; if not, 
let us so decide. Let us not evade the question altogether. 

That honorable Senators who reported this bill had its passage 
very much at heart I have no doubt ; nor do I feel disposed to deny 
that every man of them believed that it was just such a measure as 
was calculated to give tranquillity to the agitated minds of the peo- 
ple of this country. Well, I do not care for that agitation further 
than that I will look to it as a motive to inquire carefully what my 
powers and my duties are. I have heard much of this — I have been 
myself a prophet of dissolution of this Union ; but I have seen the 
Union of these States survive so many shocks that I am not afraid 
of dissolution. Perhaps, indeed, when this cry ot wolf has been 
long disregarded, he may come at last when not expected ; but I do 
not believe that the people of the South are willing to sever them- 
selves from this Republic because we will not establish Slavery here 
or there. If we have no power to pass the Ordinance of 1787, let 
the people of the South go to the Supreme Court and have the ques- 
tion decided. It will only be a few months till the Court resumes its 
session here, and the question can then be tried. If the decision be 
against us, the gentlemen of the South can at once commence their 
emigration to these Territories. Let us, then, make the law as we 
think it ought to be made now. 

I am the more confirmed in the course which I am determined 
to pursue by some historical facts elicited in this very discussion. I 
remember what was said by the Senator from Virginia the other day. 
It is true, that when the Constitution of the United States was made. 
South Carolina and Georgia refused to come into the Union unless 
the slave trade should be continued for twenty years ; and the North 
agreed that they would vote to continue the slave trade for twenty 
years ; yes, voted that this new Republic should engage in piracy 
and murder at the will of two States ! So the history reads ; and 
the condition of the agreement was, that those two States should 
agree to some arrangement about navigation laws ! I do not blame 
South Carolina and Georgia for this transaction any more than I do 
those Northern States who shared in it. But suppose the question 



ON THE CLAYTON COMPROMISE BILL. 351 

were now presented here by any one, whether we should adopt the 
foreign slave trade and continue it for twenty years, would not the 
whole land turn pale with horror, that, in the middle of the nine- 
teenth century, a citizen of a free community, a Senator of the 
United States, should dare to propose the adoption of a system that 
has been denominated piracy and murder, and is by law punished by 
death all over Christendom ? What did they do then ? They had the 
power to prohibit it; but, at the command of these two States, they 
allowed that to be introduced into the Constitution, to which much 
of Slavery now existing in our land is clearly to be traced. For who 
can doubt that, but for that woful bargain, Slavery would by this 
time have disappeared from all the States then in the Union, with one 
or two exceptions? The number of slaves in the United States at 
this period was about six hundred thousand ; it is now three mill- 
ions. And just as you extend the area of Slavery, so you multi- 
ply the difficulties which lie in the way of its extermination. It had 
been infinitely better that day that South Carolina and Georgia had 
remained out of the Union for a while, rather than that the Consti- 
tution should have been made to sanction the slave trade for twenty 
years. The dissolution of the old Confederation would have been 
nothing in comparison with that recognition of piracy and murder. 
I can conceive of nothing in the dark record of man's enormities, 
from the death of Abel down to this hour, so horrible as that of 
stealing people from their own home, and making them and their 
posterity slaves forever. It is a crime which we know has been vis- 
ited with such signal punishment in the history of nations as to war- 
rant the belief that Heaven itself had interfered to avenge the wrongs 
of earth. 

In thus characterizing this accursed traffic, I speak but the com- 
mon sentiment of all mankind. I could not, if I taxed my feeble 
intellect to the utmost, denounce it in language as strong as that 
uttered by Thomas Jefferson himself Nay, more — the spirit of that 
great man descending to his grandson, in your Virginia Convention, 
denounced the slave trade, as now carried on between the States, as 
being no less infamous than that foreign slave trade carried on in 
ships that went down into the sea. I speak of Thomas Jefferson 
Randolph. If you would not go to Africa, and thence people Cali- 
fornia with slaves, may you not perpetuate equal enormities here ? 
You take the child from its mother's bosom — you separate husband 



352 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

and wife — and you transport them three thousand miles off to the 
shores of the Pacific Ocean. 

I know that this is a pecuHar institution ; and I doubt not that 
in the hands of such gentlemen as talk about it here, it may be made 
very attractive. It may be a very agreeable sight to behold a large 
company of dependents, kindly treated by a benevolent master, and 
to trace the manifestations of gratitude which they exhibit. But in 
my eyes a much more grateful spectacle would be that of a patriarch 
in the same neighborhood, with his dependents all around him, 
invested with all the attributes of freedom bestowed upon them by 
the common Father, in whose sight all are alike precious ! It is, 
indeed, a "very peculiar" institution. According to the account of 
the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Davis], this institution exhibits all 
that is most amiable and beautiful in our nature. That Senator drew 
a picture of an old, gray-headed negro woman exhausting the kind- 
ness of her heart upon the white child she had nursed. This is true, 
and it shows the good master and the greatful servant. But, sir, all 
are not such as these. The Senator concealed the other side of the 
picture ; and it was only revealed to us by the quick apprehension of 
the Senator from Florida [Mr. Westcott], who wanted the power 
to send a patrol all over the country to prevent the slaves from rising 
to upturn the order of society? I had almost believed, after hearing 
the beautiful, romantic, sentimental, narration of the Senator from 
Mississippi, that God had, indeed, as he said, made this people in 
Africa to come over here and wait upon us, till the Senator from 
Florida waked me up to a recollection of the old doctrines of Wash- 
ington and Jefferson, by assuring us that wherever that patriarchal 
institution existed, a rigid police should be maintained in order to 
prevent the uprising of the slave. Sir, it is indeed a peculiar institu- 
tion. I know many good men, who, as masters, honor human 
nature, by the kindness, equity and moderation of their rule and 
government of their slaves ; but put a bad man, as sometimes hap- 
pens, as often happens, in possession of uncontrolled dominion over 
another, black or white, and then wrongs follow that make angels 
weep. It is, sir, a troublesome institution ; it requires too much 
law, too much force, to keep up social and domestic security ; there- 
fore, I do not wish to extend it to these new and as yet feeble 
Territories. 

Is it pretended that slave labor could be profitable in Oregon or 
California? Do we expect to grow cotton and sugar there? I do 



ON THE CLAYTON COMPROMISE BILL. 353 

not know that it may not be done there ; for as the gentleman from 
New York has told us, just as you go west upon this continent the 
line of latitude changes in temperature, so that you may have a 
very different isothermal line as you approach the Pacific Ocean. 
But I do not care so much about that. My objection is a radical 
one to the institution everywhere. I do believe, if there is any 
place upon the globe which we inhabit where a white man cannot 
work, he has no business there. If that place is fit only for black 
men to work, let black men alone work there. I do not know any 
better law for man's good than that old one, which was announced 
to man after the first transgression, that by the sweat of his brow 
he should earn his bread. I don't know what business men have in 
the world unless it is to work. If any man has no work of head or 
hand to do in this world, let him get out of it soon. The hog is the 
only gentleman who has nothing to do but eat and sleep. Him we 
dispose of as soon as he is fat. Difficult as the settlement of this ques- 
tion seems to some, it is in my judgment only so because we will 
not look at it and treat it as an original proposition, to be decided 
by the influence its determination may have on the Territories them- 
selves. We are ever running away from this, and inquiring how it 
will affect the "slave States" or the "free States." The only ques- 
tion mainly to be considered is, how will this policy affect the Terri- 
tories for which iJiis law is intended? Is Slavery a good thing, or is 
it a bad thing for tJicm? With my views of the subject, I must con- 
sider it bad policy to plant Slavery in any soil where I do not find it 
already growing. I look upon it as an exotic that blights with its 
shade the soil in which you plant it ; therefore, as I am satisfied of 
our constitutional power to prohibit it, so I am equally certain it is 
our duty to do so. 

In the States where law and long usage have made the slave 
property, as property I treat it. It is there, and while there it 
should and will receive that protection which the Constitution and 
the good neighborhood of the States afford and require at our hands. 
But I should be false to my best convictions of duty, policy and 
right, if by my vote I should extend it one acre beyond its present 
limits. I may be mistaken in all this ; but of one thing I am satis- 
fied — of the honest conviction of my own judgment; and no imag- 
inary interruption of the ties which bind the various sections of the 
Confederacy shall induce me to shrink from these convictions, when- 
ever I am called upon to carry them out into law, 
24 



354 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

But we are told that when the Constitution was made, there 
existed certain relative proportions between the power of the slave 
and the power of the free States. I understood the Senator from 
South Carolina, that we were under obligations to preserve forever 
these relative proportions in the same way. 

Mr. Calhoun — I said nothing of the kind. 

I am very happy to be undeceived. I understood the Senator 
to conceive that this is a question of power. It is not so. It is a 
question of municipal law, of civil polity. The men who framed 
the Constitution never dreamed that there was to be a conflict of 
power between the slave and the free States. They never dreamed 
that the South was to contend that they would always be equal in 
representation in the Senate to the North. They had no idea of that 
equilibrium of power of which we have heard so much. The cir- 
cumstances of that period forbade any such supposition. Looking 
at all these circumstances, (and I have no doubt those far-seeing men 
regarded them carefully) you would have had fourteen free States 
and nine slave States. But every man who had much to do with the 
formation of the Constitution expected and desired that Slavery 
should be prohibited in the new States ; and they even expected to 
have it abolished in many of the States where it existed. They had 
no idea of conflict; and if the ultra fanatics in the South, as well as 
those in the North, would let the subject alone, we should have 
much less difficulty in a proper settlement of the question. 

While the extreme fanaticism of the North, it is said, Avould 
burst the barriers of the Constitution and rush into the slave States 
to enforce their abolition views, trampling on your laws and madly 
overturning existing institutions there, the South vents its fiery indig- 
nation in tones of unmeasured reproach. But have Southern gentle- 
men considered their position before the world on this question ? 
You declare the opinion that Slavery does not exist either in Oregon, 
California or New Mexico ; all these immense regions are now, and 
for many years have been, free from Negro Slavery. And now 
what do the ultra fanatics of the South ask? Sir, they avow their 
determination to rush into these free territories, overturn the social 
systems there existing, uproot all establishments founded in and 
molded by an absence of Slavery, and having thus swept awa}^ the 
former free systems, plant there forever, the system of involuntary 
servitude. Sir, Southern gentlemen must say no more about the 
fanatics of the North endeavoring to uproot your institutions, while 



ON THE CLAYTON COMPROMISE BILL. 355 

you imitate the example of those fanatics in your treatment of the 
free soil of this Union. Sir, there is no difference between the two 
cases. The fanatics of the South are but a counterpart of those of 
the North. If there be any difference, it is only this : The fanatic 
of the North has this apology — he proposes, at least in theory, to 
enlarge and extend the boundaries of human rights. The fanatic of 
the South, strangely inconsistent with the obvious tendencies of the 
age, seeks to extend, at one sweep, human black Slavery over a coun- 
try, new and sparsely settled, larger in extent than most of the gov- 
ernments of the Old World. This does appear to my poor judg- 
ment, not merely at war with the spirit of the age, with the better 
spirit, I would say, of men in all ages ; nay, more — I must be par- 
doned if I declare it wears the aspect of absurdity, arrogance and 
temerity. Sir, I have spoken out my opinions freely, boldly, but in 
no spirit of unkindness to any man or any section of our common 
country. I know how widely different are the views of other gen- 
tlemen from mine. I know how habit, usage, time, color our 
thoughts, and indeed form our principles often. But I must here 
repeat my belief, that if we could set about this business in the 
spirit of those who founded this Republic, we should have no diffi- 
culty in enacting the Ordinance of 1787. Sir, it is best to repeat 
what they did. In 1787, they made the Constitution. In 1787, 
they made that celebrated Ordinance for the northwest. Sir, this 
doctrine of free territory is not new ; it is coeval with the Constitu- 
tion, born the same year, of the same parents, and baptized in. the 
same good old republican church. And now, when we are about to 
establish these new republics, much larger than the old, why should 
we not imitate their example, re-enact their laws, and thus secure to 
this new Republic on the Pacific the glory, the prosperity, the 
rational progress, which have shed such luster around that founded 
upon the shore of the Atlantic ? 

A Senator who sits before me [Mr. Fitzgerald] has with great 
propriety explained to the Senate the position in which he is placed 
on this subject, as connected with his friend. General Cass, not now 
a member of this body. The subject, as bearing on the opinions 
and prospects of both General Cass and General Taylor, has been 
often adverted to in this debate. While I am yet on my feet, I 
desire to say a word or two on this aspect of the debate. 

I speak of one absent from this chamber with every feeling of 
respect, and with some reluctance. It is said, and I believe truly, 



356 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

that General Cass has, within the last two years, entertained two 
opinions on this subject, the one in direct conflict with the other. In 
other words, he has changed his opinion respecting it; whereas he 
was at 071C time in favor of extending the Ordinance of 1787 over all 
new territory ; tiow, he denies the power of Congress to do so. Thus 
it follows that he would arrest all such legislation by interposing his 
veto. His position at ptesent is fixed. But, sir, this facility in form- 
ing and changing opinions in a gentleman at his time of life, gives 
some hope that in the future he may not obstinately persevere in his 
error. Sir, one who on such subjects can change in the two past 
years his opinion, gives hopeful expectation that he may change back 
in the two years to come. As Major Dugald Dalgetty would say, 
"He will be amenable to reason." His opinion, it seems, is, that 
the whole subject is to be given over to the unlimited discretion 
of the Territorial Legislatures. As to General Taylor's position in 
regard to this and all like subjects of domestic policy, I here declare 
that if I did not consider him pledged by his published letter to Cap- 
tain Allison not to interpose his veto on such subjects of legislation, 
he certainly could not get my vote, nor do I believe that of any 
Northern State. 

Mr. Hannegan — I would like to be informed by the Senator from Ohio, as he has 
referred to General Cass's position, and as he is about to give his support to General 
Taylor, if he can give us General Taylor's views on the subject, and what his opinion 
will be, when expressed in a message to Congreas. 

I cannot. 

Mr. Hannegan — I understand the .Senator from Ohio to say, that if General Tay- 
lor would interpose a veto upon the subject, he would not vote for him under any 
circumstances. 

I would not, nor would any Whig in Ohio, unless indeed we 
found him opposed to just such another man who had a great many 
bad qualities beside. [A laugh.] But, sir, I have to say that I do 
not believe that General Taylor could get the electoral vote of a free 
State in America, if it were not for the belief that prevails that upon 
this subject, as well as upon any other of domestic policy, where 
the power of Congress had been sanctioned by the various depart- 
ments of Government, and acquiesced in by the people, he would 
not, through the veto power, interfere to crush the free will of the 
people, as expressed through both branches of Congress. 

I repeat, sir, that if Congress, having the power as defined by 
the Supreme Court, acted on by Congress in various cases, as shown 



ON THE CLAYTON COMPROMISE BILL. 357 

by your legislation, sanctioned in so many ways, and till now cheer- 
fully acquiesced in by the people, should enact the Ordinance of 1787 
over again, and extend it over the three Territories in question, 
and the man in the White House should interpose his veto, and 
again and again thrust his puny arm in the way of the legislative 
power, and arrest for a long time the popular will, I will not say he 
would be impeached, tried, and ( if the law were so ) have his head 
brought to the block. Patience might in its exhaustion give way to 
exasperation, and the forms of law and the majesty of judicial trial 
all fall before the summary vengeance of an abused and insulted 
people. 

I know very well that the Senate is weary of this debate. I 
wish now only to state another fact, which will show what it is which 
our brethren of the South now demands. If you take the area of 
the free States and the slave States as they exist, and compare them, 
you will find that the latter predominate. When the Constitution 
Avas formed, and when all the territory which you then had was 
brought into the Union, the free States had an excess of 100,000 
square miles over the slave States; but when you had acquired 
Louisiana, Florida and Texas and added them to the Union, and 
when you have added the claim of the South, that they will carry 
their slaves into Oregon, New Mexico and California, what will then 
be the condition of the free States? The slave States will have one- 
third more power in the Senate of the United States than the free 
States could ever have. 

Sir, if this is to be viewed at all as a question of power, what 
I have stated would be the exact result of yielding to the present 
claim of the South ; and this will be the result, unless you prohibit 
the introduction of Slavery into these Territories. Sir, I have seen 
the working of this system. Plant thirty slaveholders among three 
hundred inhabitants who are not slaveholders and they will maintain 
their position against the thee hundred. Let one man out of fifty be a 
slaveholder, and he will pursuade the forty-nine that it is better that 
the institution should exist. It is capital and social position, opposed 
to labor and poverty. How this war may wage in the future I will 
not say ; but thus far the former have ever been an over-match for 
the latter. 

But, sir, I do not like this view of such a subject. If it were 
merely a comparison of strength or contest for relative power, I 
could yield without a struggle. But I am called on to lay the foun- 



358 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

dations of society over a vast extent of country. If this work is 
done wisely now, ages unborn shall bless us, and we shall have done 
in our day what experience approved and duty demanded. If this 
work shall be carelessly or badly done, countless millions that shall 
inherit that vast region will - hereafter remember our folly as tJicir 
curse ; our names and deeds, instead of praises, shall only call forth 
execration and reproach. In the conflict of present opinions, I have 
listened patiently to all. Finding myself opposed to some with 
whom I have rarely ever differed before, I have doubted myself, 
re-examined my conclusions, reconsidered all the arguments on either 
side, and I still am obliged to adhere to my first impressions, I may 
say my long-cherished opinions. If I part company with some Jicte, 
whom I habitually respect, I still find with me the men of the/^^/, 
whom the nations venerated. I stand upon the Ordinance of 1787» 
There the path is marked by the blood of the Revolution. I stand 
in company with the " men of '87," their locks wet with the mists of 
the Jordan over which they passed ; their garments purple with the 
waters of the Red Sea through which they led us of old to this land 
of promise. With them to point the way, however dark the present, 
Hope shines upon the future, and discerning their foot-prints in my 
path, I shall tread it with unfaltering trust. 



A CAMPAIGN SPEECH. 



DELIVERED AT IRONTON, OHIO, AUGUST 19, 1859. 



The following speech was delivered at a large political meeting in Lawrence 
County, Ohio, in the Gubernatorial canvass of 1859. It was reported for and pub- 
lished in the Cincinnati Gazette, and is one of the few campaign speeches of Mr. 
CORWIN reported in full and revised for publication. Among the distinguished per- 
sons present at the meeting, and to whom allusion is made in the speech, were Hon. 
William Dennison, the Republican candidate for Governor of Ohio, and Hon. 
Laban T. Moore, member of Congress elect from the Ninth District, Kentucky. 

My Fellow-Citizens: 

If it were a part of my design, in visiting this portion of the 
State, to exhibit myself as an orator, I should feel, as my venerable 
friend* would feel for me after what you have heard. I have no 
ambition in addressing my fellow-citizens, at all events, in popular 
assemblies, to discharge any other duty to myself or them than that, 
if it may be possible, of communicating some information which 
shall be useful to them in the discharge of their duty as voters. 

You who are intrusted with the exercise of that great office of 
voting which you have so shamefully and so strangely neglected in all 
your lifetime — you who come here to understand, it may be, your 
duties from men who come from a distance of two or three hundred 
miles, do well ; but to you who come to listen to smart speeches or 
fine orations, allow me to say in candor, as one interested in the 
manner in which this duty is to be discharged, that you had better 
have staid at home ; if you have an honorable calling in the world, 
or honest occupation in life, you should have attended to it to-day, 
instead of coming to hear me. 

You have heard, in the glowing language of my friend, in the 
ardor and sincerity of his own spirit, that bead-roll of offenses, God 
knowns it was a melancholy catalogue of crime which he exhibited 

*The President of the meeting. (359) 



360 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

against the public men of the State of Ohio and the United States. 
Now, whenever any man in speaking of the affairs of your Republic 
shall be able, with truth and in candor, to pronounce the officers of 
the Government unworthy the trust reposed in them ; to have vio- 
lated their pledges, if it be so, or willfully neglected the duties of 
the various posts to which they had been assigned ; if ever any man 
can say that of your public men, with truth, then he has pronounced 
a condemnation upon the whole system of the American Republic, 
for he has said that men entrusted with the duty of appointing offi- 
cers do not know how to go about the discharge of their duty, or do 
not care in what manner they do discharge it. If there be any man 
whose heart is filled with shame and anguish, when he hears these 
things said — if there be any man who feels thus, I hold it is impos- 
sible, in the nature of things, that he will not, for the moment, 
doubt the propriety of giving universal suffrage to any people. 

Now, some of my Democratic brethren will go away and say 
that I am a Federalist, on account of what I have said here to-day, 
but I have felt it my duty to say thus much everywhere. I have no 
doubt of the intelligence of the people. I have no doubt of the 
general integrity and of the honesty of the hearts of the mass of all 
the parties that ever existed in this Republic ; but I assert that I 
have doubts whether the people of this county do faithfully attend 
to the election of their officers. Why do I say this? Because, if 
you will believe what has been said by either of the great political 
parties, for the last thirty years, the public men whom you have had 
in office, have been unworthy of the places which they have filled. 
Whose fault is it that your State of Ohio is inflicted with a heavy 
loss of $750,000 — money wrung from the pockets of the people by 
direct taxation ? It is gone, and you know not where it is. It is 
your fault. You elected the men to office. 

Let me suppose that some monarch at Washington City was in- 
vested with the power of appointing the agents of States to office, 
to do as he pleased with the government of the States, and that 
monarch appointed servants as unfaithful to their duties as yours are 
said to have been, what would you do with him ? My life upon it, 
if there was one drop of the blood that coursed in the veins of your 
forefathers left warm within you, there would be found some patri- 
otic man to drive the dagger to the heart of that despot. What, 
then, is to be done with you, who vote for and elect all these men ? 

I believe it is now conceded by very many of the Democratic 



A CAMPAIGN SPEECH. 361 

party that the present Chief Magistrate has lamentably disappointed 
even those who elected him. He has not disappointed those who 
opposed his election, for they predicted that everything would go 
wrong under his administration. There are very few Democratic 
aspirants to office in the North or West, who dare avow themselves 
friends of the President. Thus it seems that this officer is now con- 
demned by many of those who voted for him. How came they to 
elect such a man as that? Had they not sense and sagacity enough 
to know a man whose life had been before them on their public rec- 
ords for thirty or forty years? Were they so ineffably stupid, that 
they did not investigate that man's life, to know him before they 
appointed him to that high office ? They could have done it, but 
did not do it. The great office of electing President and Governor 
and Legislatures, State and Federal, the great office which you hold, 
you sadly neglect. I assert that the duties of the Presidency have 
been discharged with quite as much fidelity as has been shown by 
many of the people of the United States in the exercise of their 
great office — the elective franchise. This is not so because you are 
not intelligent — nor because you are bad men, but because every 
man has the same interest and power that you have, and you say, 
"Let somebody else do it." "I will not interest myself in this, or 
I will be called a politician — the brethren of my church won't like it ; 
why should I disturb myself about this thing? I have my own 
affairs to attend to, and I will attend to them, and as for this business 
of regulating the affairs of the Republic, I will leave that to those 
fellows who want office." That is the way you think about it; that 
is the way you have acted with it. If you had not acted in that 
way, I tell you that few of these calamities which you have now to 
deplore would have occurred; few of these great instances of blun- 
dering would have happened. Why have you not done this? I say, 
you will not attend to this business ; if you did, if you had done so, 
then I think it must follow, as a legitimate conclusion, that you don't 
know how. So much for the consideration of my brethren in this 
private little class-meeting of ours, of two or three thousand persons, 
where we are considering the state of religion in the American 
Church, and lighting up a candle and putting it into every man's 
hand that he may search his own bosom. 

Let those gentlemen who feel themselves quite too respectable 
and decent to mingle in our elections, remember that God Almighty 
will hold them responsible for the manner in which they discharge 



362 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

their duty as voters. That right and privilege is not given to them 
for their benefit, or to be used at their pleasure, but for my benefit,, 
for your benefit, and for the benefit of the thirty millions of people 
in the United States. If one sees an unworthy man go to the polls- 
and take possession of the Government, and he will not prevent it,, 
if there be such a thing as future responsibility — as we all believe — 
that man will have something to answer for upon that final day when 
all of us must account for our acts. 

Do you suppose that the old men who published that Declara- 
tion of Independence, which gave birth to your national existence, 
for the maintenance of which they appealed to the God of nations, 
approve of this neglect? They felt their own weakness; they, acting 
upon the commonly accepted principles of human reason, felt that 
they would perish in the conflict into which they were then about to 
enter ; and at last, as poor feeble man always does when he feels he 
has nothing to lean upon but his own arm, he goes to the Almighty 
for help in that hour of trouble. They appealed to Him, and He 
answered well in the day of their trial ; and all the struggles they 
endured, all the blood they shed, all the pains and privations they 
suffered, were simply to end in just one thing — in communicating to 
every rational free man equal power to govern the nation. That 
office they communicated to you — the voting people of the country. 
Did they suppose — could they have believed that the people of this 
country, the respectable people of the land, would so scorn the great 
and priceless estate which they left them, as that they would not 
attend to appointing the agents to take care of it, but that some 
mercenary spirit was to take care of them? 

If each member of the community had an interest in a banking 
institution, or in a joint stock manufacturing company, where his 
reward was to be but a few paltry dollars per cent, on his capital — if 
a meeting was called to appoint a president or an agent of that com- 
pany, he would attend this meeting, to elect this president and direc- 
tor of the paltry bank or joint stock concern ; but when the president 
and directors are to be elected to take care of the liberties of the 
whole country, oh, these men are too decent, too respectable, to 
attend. It is not respectable to be a politician, they tell us, or they 
are too careless, or they have half an acre of buckwheat which 
might not be got in and saved, if they left home on the election-day. 

That is the way you act with your privileges. Let us cease 
complaining of the men you elect, and of the laws they make. One 



A CAMPAIGN SPEECH. 363 

thing we know to be perfectly certain, the stockholders do not attend 
to the election of the president and directors, or if they do, they 
don't know how to do their duty. 

Don't let us blame our Presidents so much ! Don't let us anath- 
ematize the men we have elected to these offices of State, too much ! 
Let us abuse the people who elected them. They are to blame for 
wrongs done, if any have been done. If you elect a judge, and he 
does not attend at court, and if an innocent man is hung because he 
was not there to try him, what do you with him ? You take him to 
Columbus and impeach him. He is removed from office, and the 
brand of disgrace and ignominy is placed upon his brow. But you 
can be absent from elections, and let unworthy men be elected to 
office. You don't like some party or other. The judge might say 
he did not like his associate ; he did not like to sit near him — he had 
not a very sweet breath. I tell you, sirs, that it is quite as valid as 
many of the excuses that men make for staying away from elections. 

What have you been doing now, to go no further back than the 
last few years — sixteen or seventeen? All of you of mature age, 
remember the year 1840 very well. What did all the people of the 
United States do then ? They rose up with mingled feelings of mer- 
riment and indignation — for it was difficult to tell which prevailed 
that year, the events of the administration of Mr. Van Buren had 
been so singularly out of the way, nowise conformable to anybody's 
notion of things, it was difficult to say whether it was looked at with 
indignation, contempt or merriment. Many of his officers were run- 
ning away with the people's money — you know how we used to show 
up the leg-treasurers ! Three-quarters of the people started up and 
declared, we will have no more Democratic government ; we will have 
Whig government. The principles upon which these two parties 
were contending, then, for your suffrages, were diametrically opposed. 
Upon due deliberation and solemn consideration (for I do hope you 
sometimes consider these things ), it was determined by an unexam- 
pled majority of the country that, henceforth, Whigs and their prin- 
ciples should be the rule of conduct in the United States. It was 
so ! Your decree, when you make it, is always omnipotent. 

Four years pass away— they go by — and what happens then ? 
You have again to appoint a President of this great joint-stock com- 
pany of ours. The people have two men presented to them. One 
has been alluded to by my friend, Mr. Dennison — Mr. Clay, of Ken- 
tucky — a man who has been spoken of so much that it would be 



364 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIX. 

idle to attempt to employ terms adequate to express the feelings 
with which one who knew him as well as I did, regarded the great 
loss we have sustained by his death ; a man of whom the nation was 
proud, a man who had a European reputation, who was regarded as 
the great champion of regulated liberty, by men of intelligence, all 
■over the world ; in addition to this he had endowments which it has 
pleased God very rearely to give to mortal man ; an integrity as 
pure as the highest integrity of the highest and best of the ancient 
people who have descended to us as demi-gods. Nobody questioned 
this in the election at all. It was named and repeated every hour. 
He did not like the annexation of Texas to the United States ; not 
because he himself had any personal objection to any accumulation 
of slave States in the country, but because he believed it would dis- 
turb the harmony of the Republic as it then existed. The harmony 
and prosperity of this land were the idols of his heart. Another 
man was also presented to the American people — a very ordinary 
man. (I wish to speak of him in no terms of disparagement.) 
You all know something of Mr. Polk. He never pretended to be 
the equal of Mr. Clay. Mr. Polk differed from him with regard to 
the annexation of Texas. He desired that that independent Repub- 
lic, living under the shadow of our wing, should be annexed to the 
United States. He was a democrat of the Democrats. I knew him 
well. You know that I speak truly of his history. As a politician 
he was opposed to everything now proposed by the opposition in 
the slave States, and by the Republican party in the free States, as 
the proper system of government in this country. Well, Clay pro- 
posed to the country to continue the Whig government begun by 
Mr. Harrison, and but partially carried out by his successor. You 
had determined, four years before, that henceforward you would only 
have Whig principles and Whig rulers. Four years passed by, and 
with the mighty difference between the two men, you determined by 
a very large majority you would have no more Whig government, 
but would have Democratic government, even when you could have 
the pleasure and the pride of voting for one of the greatest states- 
men the world ever knew. The stockholders changed their opinion 
greatly in these four years, or else they did not vote their principles 
at all. 

Well, as we know human nature is full of imperfection, and as 
men are gaining light every day in the world, we fondly hoped by 
the school-houses and churches which we had erected we would eret 



A CAMPAIGN SPEECH. 365 

some intelligence. We began to suppose that we were mistaken in 
1840, and that we had learned that the Democratic was the true rule 
of government in the country. 

Four years more rolled round, which brings us to 1848. The 
country, in the meantime had been involved in a foreign war, and it 
is very rare, when the ambition of our Republic is concerned, and 
that ambition is put into conflict with another nation, that the men 
of the nation do not take sides with him who wages the war. What 
did we in 1848? With about the same unanimity as before we 
declared that we would have no more Democratic government, we 
will have a Whig government, even though we have to deposit this 
great power of statesmanship in the hands of a man fresh from the 
battle-field, who was never in the councils of his country. The 
stockholders have changed back again. 

Four years have rolled around, and 1852 comes upon us, and 
finds us still increasing in light and knowledge. Mind, in 1848 we 
jumped back just eight years. We found, I suppose, that the light 
had been leading us astray — that we failed in 1844. Now we are at 
the stand-point of 1840 again. Instead of keeping our resolution to 
continue a Whig government, we have found out that we were mis- 
taken a second time, and we take not General Scott, who was by no 
means an ordinary man. He was a Whig, and you put away that 
illustrious general and that eminently qualified statesman and took a 
man who was not quite his equal in peace or war. I wish to speak 
in no way disrespectful of Mr. Pierce, but I say that you fell so 
much in love with democratic government, that you threw away a 
Whig who was eminently qualified as a statesman and renowned as a 
warrior, and took a man not renowned in either way. 

Now this, and all of this, is applicable to all of us. What 
would you think of any man — to illustrate — of any farmer, who 
would take one of those fine patent plows and plow down his barren 
ground, and raise a good crop upon his land which he had thrown 
aside as useless, gather his crop into his garner, reap the reward of 
his labor, thank God for his fruitful harvest and pocket the money it 
brings to him ; and then when he had another crop to raise, should 
say, "By that plow I got a good crop, a better one than I expected, 
but as I have the power to do as I please with my own land, I will 
try the old 'go-devil' plow this year." You all know what a "go- 
devil " is. You know it is a harrow with three prongs, a very good 
thing in its way, but by no means a good thing to break up ground 



366 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

with. Well, he takes his "go-devil" and he kicks his ground about, 
and he gets no crop, and you all know well he can't get much of a 
crop that way, anyhow. Now he gets in debt. He says : ' ' Well, 
I was a great fool to take that ' go-devil ;' I will get that patent plow 
to work again." The third year he uses that plow again, and he gets 
another good crop, and gets out of debt. He gets his money into 
his pocket, and goes to his thanksgiving dinner, eats his turkey and 
thanks God for His goodness. The fourth year, however, he says: 
"Have I not a right to do as I please? I will take that old 'go- 
devil ' again ;" and he takes it, and the result again is quite devilish. 

That is precisely what you, the people of the United States, 
have done with your power of voting. That is exactly what you 
have done. Do you wonder that those veteran old statesmen in 
Europe, such as Metternich, or Walewski, and Palmerston and 
Derby, who have read over and over again all that is said about pop- 
ular government and all that has been written, and have seen it 
always remarked that especial care must be taken to guard against 
the carelessness and vacillation of the people, do you wonder when 
those old gentlemen see what you have done, how you have acted 
with the exercise of this right of suffrage, as if you did not care 
what became of your country, or did not know what ought to be 
done, changing four times in four successive elections from Whig to 
Democrat and from Democrat to Republican, that they should doubt 
your discretion? It seems as if you did not know how to do this 
work. Do you suppose that any man who acted with his plows as I 
have stated to you, could ever make a will in the world? I tell you 
no judge would allow such a man's will to go on record, because 
such a man must be insane. If that man were to make a deed of a 
house and lot, and his heirs were to prove this, it would be declared 
null and void. If his heirs should want to set aside such a man's 
deed, let them send for me, and I will set it aside before any intelli- 
gent jury in your country, because the man must be insane. 

Yet you have done the same thing with this right of voting. 
You have acted in just that way, and now, when we lift up our hands 
with indignation at the bad conduct of our rulers, don't let us blame 
the "go-devil" because he did not go twelve inches into the ground, 
because he can't. That is what we have done. Let us cast the 
beam out of our own eye, and then we will see clearly the mote that 
is in the poor President's eye. I pray you, ponder these things. 



A CAMPAIGN SPEECH. 367 

Do they not, as we hear it said sometimes, "look to a man up a 
tree " like truth? 

Now, my fellow-citizens, it is because of these things, and 
because I am, as a citizen, interested in this matter, that I have the 
impudence at all to come and speak to you about it. We are to 
elect a President and Directors soon again, and I am interested in 
that election, just as you are, and if you are weak enough to listen 
to me, I must speak what I believe, and speak such belief plainly to 
plain men. 

We here have parties ! I am not one of those who believe that 
political parties are natural necessities. I am not one who believes 
that as men of sense and discretion, we have need to differ about this 
thing at all. I admit that parties are made necessary by the present 
imperfections of mankind. But while I would admit as much, I 
would beg of you to put away the little, mean and trifling ambitions 
and asperities of parties, and my life on it, if you would do that 
there would not be so much party in the country as there is. You 
should have a President who would summon the whole faculties of 
Jiis head and the better emotions of his heart, and concentrate them 
upon the idea that he was the representative of the only free govern- 
ment on the face of the earth, and the one supposed to be the model 
of all to come after us in all nations of the world, that want to 
be free — if we could but get a man that would elevate himself so 
high as to think that, and act upon it — newspaper paragraphs would 
be somewhat changed. We have seen lately a statement in the 
papers to this effect : Some postmaster, far away in the prairies of 
Illinois, the gross receipts of whose office might be equal to five dol- 
lars a year, had the impudence to poke his head out of the little log 
•cabin in which his office was held, and say that he thought Stephen 
A. Douglas was a respectable man. He was overheard by some 
poor man — not poor in property, but poor in soul, who had a little 
starved and miserable soul in him, who wrote to this mighty repre- 
sentative of the only free country on the face of God's earth, taking 
care of the liberty of thirty millions, that he did not like Mr, Doug- 
las, while the other man, the postmaster, did. He begged that the 
President would send forth a mandate to that poor little fellow on 
the prairies, who was collecting his five dollars per year ( I dare say 
about the fifth part of the expense of his fuel for one winter), to go 
out of office and let some man come in who did not like Mr. 
Dousflas. 



368 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

That is a fact, so they say. Don't let me now be holding up 
Mr. Buchanan as an exception. Such has been too much the case 
with every President since this party spirit has been so much in 
vogue. Whig and Democrat, etc., have been guilty of the same sin. 
I know, when you are electing a man to make laws for you, you 
must elect one whose notions agree with yours ; but I do not know 
that when you have a clerk at Washington, and the Whig party 
believe the penknife he uses ought to pay thirty per cent, ad 
valorcju duty, and that poor clerk has not been able to see that dis- 
tinctly, although he is a capital book-keeper and a faithful man, but 
in his soul and conscience he thinks it would not be right to pay 
so much duty as that, that you should turn him out of office and say 
that he is not fit for a book-keeper. It is not respectable. I know 
that, because I have seen it tried. No man can feel like a gentle- 
man, if God has made him one, and do that thing. If that man 
holds his tongue, we will not question him as to that ; but if he is to 
go to Congress and make laws for us, to establish that duty on the 
penknife, then we will ask him about it. 

All of this we have done, and this has increased that party 
asperity, and induced men to take sides with the party in power, 
and, of course, the meanest men in the county will get the offices 
on that principle, the little executive offices and the little ministerial 
offices. That is what we have all done. Let us quit it. Let us see 
if we cannot quit it. If you want a man to represent your republic 
abroad, find a man who has some of the qualifications of a gentle- 
man — I mean a gentleman of God's making, not a fellow in fine 
clothes, though, of course, he ought to be dressed decently when he 
goes courting. Let him be a man of respectability. You have 
enough of these men. Don't appoint a man who shall be spoken of 
as a friend of mine told me one of our representatives was spoken 
of My friend had been charge d'affaires at Brussels a great while — 
four years ; while there, he became acquainted with a French diplo- 
mat, and that French diplomat had seen a man at a foreign court 
who represented our Government as charge d'affaires. He was a 
very stupid man ; he did not speak any language very well. Now, 
said this French gentleman, "Why don't you send fine specimens, 
good-looking men, who speak some language?" "Oh!" said my 
friend, "don't they all speak some language ? " "No," was the answer, 
' ' I met a gentleman at Copenhagen who speaks no language at all. 
He speaks some infernal /^/m which they call Ohio." Of course. 



A CAMPAIGN SPEECH. 369 

your representative was treated with contempt. The Frenchman 
thought he was the best man we had. 

We should not be very particular about his politics either; for 
our domestic politics have very little to do with our foreign missions. 
The man who would select a Judge of the Supreme Court or Circuit 
Court of the United States, to discharge the great duties of that sta- 
tion, because he was a Democrat or a Republican, without reference 
to other qualifications, his head ought to roll upon a block. Judic- 
ial qualifications have nothing to do with Republican policy or Dem- 
ocratic policy. Judges decide matters of law, not measures of 
policy. 

The opposition to the Administration on the other side of the 
river has been chiefly concerned in a dispute as to what shall be 
done with the slave property in the south. You have heard what 
friend Dennison has said. He says, it is the doctrine and resolute 
determination of the Republican party of Ohio, and he might have 
added, of all of what is called the free States of the Union, to exert 
the power which they hold belongs to them, under the Constitution 
of the United States, by Congressional action to prohibit Slavery in 
any territory where it does not already exist. My own impression 
is that that ought to be done. That is my belief about it. 

I am not so very particular about this, as a mere matter of doc- 
trine, because I think that there will be much more important duties 
for us to perform when we get to Congress than to dispute about 
this abstract proposition. Slavery exists, as you know, in certain 
portions of the United States. The only territories that can ever 
be subject to Slavery are those of Utah, New Mexico and Washing- 
ton ; and into either of these it would be madness to take slaves 
now. Kansas has settled the question for herself, after fighting a 
pretty hard battle, under this doctrine of "squatter sovereignty." 

But it is said Congress has no power over this subject of Slavery 
in the Territories. It is said, you find, in the Constitution, the 
phrase, "popular sovereignty," or "squatter sovereignty," or that 
the ideas represented by such language, is there, or fairly implied 
from language which is there. This is what we do read in the Con- 
stitution touching the power of Congress over Territories. "Con- 
gress shall have power to make all needful rules and regulations 
respecting the Territory, or other property of the United States." 
Now if the framers of the Constitution had intended that the then 
Northwestern Territory and all Territories for all time to come should 
25 



370 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

have the right, without any control of Congress, to enact and execute 
any law, which the inhabitants or squatters should please, would 
they not, after what I have recited, have gone on to declare, that 
"the inhabitants of any territory should have power to make all 
needful rules and regulations for their internal and ' municipal gov- 
ernment?' " It is very clear that they would have done so had they 
intended any such power as what is now called popular sovereignty 
should be exerted by the people of a Territory. But they inserted 
no clause to that effect, they left this power in Congress alone, and 
the history of our legislative and judicial decisions and executive 
acts, all show for more than half a century, that such was the mean- 
ing and intent of the Constitution. 

The words used in the Constitution, which I have read to you, 
have been criticised with a display of much philological learning. 
Words in use in the every-day talk and transactions of life are often 
used carelessly, and by different persons in very different senses; 
words that have application to peculiar sciences or arts have, when 
applied to such science or art, a well-defined and 6xed meaning. 
This is true of all words, in any language, which have reference to 
the science of law. Now the words "rules and regulations," used 
in the Constitution, have a fixed and well understood meaning. We 
should bear in mind that the men who framed and wrote the Consti- 
tution were not only wise and good men, having large acquaintance 
with the great principles of civil polity, but they were, many of 
them, learned men and very learned lawyers. When they made use 
of terms which have been well defined in books which treat of law, 
they knew, and intended, that these words or phrases should carry 
with them the same meaning which had been assigned them in the 
books from whence they derived them. I dare say, most of our 
advocates for popular sovereignty will allow that Gen. Hamilton, one 
of the most influential members of the Convention, had read and 
studied " Blackstone's Commentaries." Blackstone defines law to be 
a "rule" of action prescribed by the Supreme Power commending 
what is right, etc. When the Constitution ordained that Congress 
should have power to make all needful "rules" concerning the Ter- 
ritory — and it simply provided that Congress should have power to 
make all needful "laws" concerning the Territory — so the language 
imports, and so more than fifty years of practice prove, did "the 
Fathers" understand the words they had used. 

We must never lose si^ht of this historical argument. On this 



A CAMPAIGN SPEECH. 371 

subject it is worth all the philology of all the schools. There is a 
history pertaining to this question, as there is belonging to the Chris- 
tian Church and to most of the great points of theology and divin- 
ity, arising out of the Bible, which is the constitution for that 
Church. Now, what do all preachers of the Christian religion do, 
when a dispute arises touching the meaning of a text. If they can 
be satisfied by any explanation given by its author, either by words 
or acts, then the question is settled at once. By the plainest princi- 
ple of common sense, if the author of any writing whatever, 
declares the meaning of his own words, that is to be taken as the 
true meaning and intent of such author. If a question arises about 
the proper interpretation of a passage in the writings of Paul, Mat- 
thew or John ; if it can be shown that either of them declared what 
such text did mean, or, by his constant practice and conduct, showed 
that the writer did understand it to mean this or that, then I pre- 
sume, the most hypercritical disputant would be obliged to agree to 
such, as being the proper sense of the passage in dispute. 

Now, the question I ask, in this, as in all other cases where the 
true intent and meaning of the Constitution is in question, is, what 
did "the Fathers" intend? Let their acts answer. I presume no 
one of the modern school of patriots will assert that the Fathers 
were rogues, and went straightway, after they made a Constitution, 
to break it. I could here tire your patience, exemplary as it is, by 
a long recital of their acts, showing that they understood the Consti- 
tution to give Congress full, and complete, and exclusive power, to 
legislate, in all cases, and on all subjects, for the Territories. Let a 
very few historical references on this point suffice, for the present. 

The Territory of Indiana, between the years 1803 and 1810, 
petitioned Congress, I think as often as three times, to enact a law 
which would authorize that Territory to hold slaves. Sometimes 
they asked it for a limited time, sometimes to have it in a modified 
form. Now what did Congress do with these petitions? Did they 
refuse to refer them to a committee, on the ground that Congress 
had no power to make any law (as now contended) for Territories? 
No such thing. They referred all these petitions to committees, 
from time to time, as they were presented. What did the commit- 
tees do in the premises? Did they report, that Congress had no 
power over the subject, and ask to be dismissed and discharged from 
its further consideration? Not at all. On the contrary, they exam- 
ined the petitions, they deliberated, they reflected ; they considered 



372 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

the territory and its people as their territory, and their proper con- 
stituents. They acted as guardians of Indiana Territory, as having 
been so constituted by the Constitution, which had imposed this 
duty upon Congress, from which duty they could not release them- 
selves. In one instance, I believe, one committee reported favora- 
bly to the prayer for Slavery, but that report was never sanctioned 
by the vote of Congress, nor was it rejected. It lay on the table, 
and was not acted upon by Congress at all. In another instance, the 
justly celebrated John Randolph, of Roanoke, was chairman of the 
committee to whom one of these petitions was referred. He was 
then a Jeffersonian Republican. He was not one to assume power 
not granted by the Constitution. Nor was he likely to be ignorant 
of any of those arguments, now-a-days quite common, in favor of 
the advantages of slave labor. He was a Virginian, a slaveholder, 
and beyond any cavil or doubt, he was "of the first families." He, 
I suppose, had not learned yet what his successors in Virginia, per- 
haps of the first, perhaps of the second families, have discovered, 
that is, that by virtue of the Constitution, Slavery was in Indiana all 
the time. Neither did the stupid people of Indiana, who begged 
Congress for Slavery, know this great secret. Had some modern 
lawyer but been "then and there" to pronounce "the magic word," 
"the response of the oracle" as given now, "over all the Territories 
the Constitution carries and sanctifies Slavery, ' siio propria vigorc' " 
— had Randolph and Caesar A. Rodney "but known this much," 
what labor, what painful thought and anxious care would have been 
spared to them! Alas for "the Fathers," they did not know what 
their own Constitution meant — they did not understand the work of 
their own hands ; they did not, it seems, comprehend the import of 
their own thoughts, and, more to be deplored than even this, the 
"old fogies" of Indiana had not heard of "popular sovereignty," 
or if they, by any lucky chance, had heard these pregnant and magic 
words, they surely did not apprehend their meaning. But let us be 
grave, for the subject certainly is one of the gravest importance. 
You see, my fellow-citizens, that, in the early infancy of our Consti- 
tutional history, all men, all Congresses, clearly asserted the right of 
Congress to prohibit Slavery in Territories. Randolph reported 
against the prayer for Slavery, and said, in his reports, in substance, 
that the Territory would find ample compensation for the temporary 
want of labor, in more rapid emigration, and in being finall}- free 
from the evil influences of Slavery; and so the committee and Con- 



A CAMPAIGN SPEECH. 373 

gress, in this way, asserted tlieir power to make laws for Indiana Ter- 
ritory, and refused to permit Slavery there. Now we have found 
out what the Fathers did under the Constitution which the Fathers 
made, and so we have reached the main fact, that is, they said, by 
their acts, "When we made the Constitution, we intended to give, 
and did give. Congress power to enact laws for Territories." But ten 
years pass away, and the year 1820 comes, freighted with its cares, 
its wise men and their deeds — very weak men, these of 1820, accord- 
ing to our modern standard ; very foolish deeds theirs, according to 
the judgment of unshaven, unbearded boys of 1859. But what was 
the year of grace 1820? We old gentlemen who were of that day, 
and by special providence have been permitted to see the great light 
of this, can recall many of the events, aspects and feelings of 1820, 
with pleasure to ourselves, and not, we hope, without profit, as fur- 
nishing a small contingent of that now much despised article, exper- 
ience, once deemed the true, and unfailing school of wisdom. 

Our Republic, from its first emergence into the dignity of inde- 
pendent nationality, was never more truly national, or, if you please 
American, than in this year 1820. We had then but recently come 
■out of the war of 1812, with Great Britain. At the close of that 
war, "poHtical parties " were all, all dead — one only remained, and 
that was an United American party. We were united in heart, in 
feeling, in principle, and in policy. Mr. Monroe was President at 
this time. He was singularly free from party asperity in feeling, 
and not at all troubled with hobbies or crotchets. Mr. Madison's 
administration, which preceded, had been characterized by a happy 
admixture of the best of the principles and policy of both of the 
Federal and Republican parties, and Mr. Monroe walked in his foot- 
steps. The cabinet of Mr. Monroe was composed of men, each of 
whom might be truly said to be "a man." John Quincy Adams 
was Secretary of State ; William H. Crawford, Secretary of the 
Treasury ; John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War ; Samuel L. Southard, 
Secretary of the Navy; William Wirt, Attorney-General. John 
McLean was Postmaster-General, but this officer was not then a 
member of the cabinet. Each one and all of these eminent men 
may be said to have been great and good men. Their history justi- 
fies me in this opinion. While these men composed the Executive 
Department of the Government, Congress admitted Missouri into 
the Union. The Northern boundary of Missouri was the line of 
latitude 36° 30' ; north of this line there were no white inhabitants ; 



374 SPKKCIIKS OK THOMAS (ORWIX. 

all north of it was territory, the same now known as Kansas anti 
Nebraska. MissoiM'i was adinittcel with Slavery, for ^ood reasons, 
which 1 will show you presently, liut at the same time (1821) the 
then Congress enacted a law which declared, that all the territory 
comprehended in the Louisiana purchase lying north of latitude 36° 
30' should be forever free territory. By this law Slavery was forever 
forl.)idden in all the territory now organized as Kansas and Nebraska 
Territories. The question was then settled by Congress again, as we 
now contend it should have been, and is still, "that Congress had 
the power to prohibit Slavery in Territories." So far, \)'e find the 
legislative department of the Government agreeing, by an unbroken 
series of decisions, that this power did exist, and, what we should 
never forget, "that it was also expedient, and for the public good, 
to prohibit Slavery in the Territories, wherever it did not exist 
before such prohibition." 

Now for the executive department. We have seen that Mr. 
Monroe was President at this time, and we have already heard who and 
Avhat sort of men composed his cabinet. We now know that this 
very question was submitted for decision to that cabinet, and that 
every member of it, including Mr. Monroe, agreed that Congress 
had power, under and by virtue of the Constitution, to enact that 
law — that is, they decided that Congress hail the power to prohibit 
Slavery in Territories, and Mr. Monroe accordingly approved and 
signed that bill. Now, I ask, where, then, was the Constitution, 
with Slavery under its arm in all Territories, as they now say, bear- 
ing its blessed freight abroad, " s/zo prcprio vigorcV Where was 
"popular sovereignty" then? Where was the watchful eye of Mon- 
roe, the appointed keeper of the Constitution ? Where was the pro- 
found learning of Adams? Where the calm wisdom and rigid con- 
struction of Crawford ? Where slept the keen sagacity and analytic 
powers of Calhoun? Where the law learning and deliberative mind 
of Southard ? And above all, what fatal opiate had drugged the all- 
accomplished mind of Wirt into lethean forgetfulness? M)- country- 
men, my friends, can you believe that President Pierce and his cabi- 
net, and a few such gentlemen as we all know, in Congress, in the 
year of grace 1854, knew more of the true meaning of the blessed 
Constitution of this country than the men of 1803, of 1804, of 
1810, or those whom I have named, in 1820 and in 1821 ? It is not 
necessary that I should draw the parallel, or compare, or contrast 
the intellect or the patriotism of these two classes of men. The 



A CAMPAIGN Kl'KlOCir. 375 

men of 1821 enacted the pn^hibition of Slavery in the territory 
north of 30° 30'. The men of 1854 rc[)ealed that law. Compare 
the two; let every man be his own Plutarch, I cannot now speak 
their lives. 

Let us now pass over the time between 1821 and 1848. In 
the latter year Oregon Territory was organized. Pause here a 
moment and consider how this became necessary. The anxious, 
bu.sy, sleepless, hardy Yankee had been whaling in the Pacific. He 
had read of Grey and Kendricks' wanderings in that sea, of their 
.sailing up the Columbia river. lie had, perhaps, anchored at the 
mouth of that river with his "home returning freight" of oil. Me 
had, it may be, mixed a can of switchel there and looked out upon 
the land. He comes home, and forthwith the logger in Maine pre- 
pares to migrate. The man in Connecticut and in Ma.s.sachusetts 
quits his cotton-mills, his cutleries, his comb-factories, and lo ! the 
next tidings you hear of Jonathan, he is down on the Pacific, with 
"shop up and shingle out" ready for business. PVom that moment 
no whale or salmon shall have a "Christian burial" west of the 
Stony Mountains. Minks, seals, otters and all fur-bearing creatures, 
ye are hats and caps and no "living thing," from thenceforth forever- 
more. It is clear that such a people .should be "organized," and so 
it was done in the year 1848. In that bill, Slavery in Oregon Terri- 
tory was prohibited, and Mr. Polk, then President, "approved" and 
signed it. In the intermediate time between 1821 and 1848, very 
many acts of Congre.ss, enacting, or recognizing the same principle 
(the power of Congress to make laws for Territories) were passed, 
signed and approved. Put still further, in all the organic laws made 
for all territories, I think (perhaps there may be an exception or 
two) where Congress authorize a territorial legislature to enact laws, 
they go on to provide in substance that all laws enacted by such leg- 
islatures .shall be reported to Congress, and if Congress .shall disap- 
prove them, they shall be null and void. This you will find in the 
acts of 1850, organizing Utah and New Mexico. The .same provis- 
ion is in the organic law of Washington Territory, pas.sed in 1852. 
Does not that provision assert the omnipotent legislative power of 
Congress over territories, in total forgetfulness of popular sover- 
eignty, or even constitutions, '^ suo ptoprio vigore'' extending Slavery? 
All such laws have been enacted by Congresses of every hue of pol- 
itics, various as these shades have been, and approved by Presidents 
of all parties. Thus we have the legislative and executive depart- 



376 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

merits from the adoption of the United States Constitution up to 
1852, a period of over sixty years, affirming the RepubHcan doctrine 
held by us, my Republican brethren, this 19th day of July, 1859. 
Now we see where the "Fathers' " foot-prints are, the road is plain, 
well paved and straight. The milestones are red with Revolutionary 
blood. We cannot be lost in it. With God's blessing, and I hum- 
bly trust with his approval, we will aver, this day, that neither Presi- 
dents nor President-makers, nor principalities nor powers, shall stop 
us in our march onward in that road. 

My fellow-citizens, I invoke your patience while we look for a 
moment into the judicial department. If we can find our Repub- 
lican principles approved there, then authority, example, precedent, 
can go no further. 

In the year 1828 the case of "The American Insurance Com- 
pany and others against David Carter" came before the Supreme 
Court of the United States — John Marshall being then Chief Justice. 
This case will be found reported in 1st Peters' Reports, page 511. 
This question of the power of Congress over Territories is spoken of 
by Justice Marshall, in that case, in these terms. I will read his 
words — for the words of such a man should never be repeated but 
with care and reverence. Speaking of the treaty by which we 
acquired Florida from Spain, he says: "The treaty is the law of 
the land, and admits the inhabitants of Florida to the enjoyment of 
the privileges, rights and immunities of citizens of the United States. 
It is unnecessary to inquire whether this is not their condition inde- 
pendent of stipulation. They do not, however, participate in politi- 
cal power; they do not share in the Government till Florida shall 
become a State." Now mark what follows: "In the meantime, 
Florida continues to be a territory of the United States, governed by 
virtue of that clause in the Constitution which empowers Congress 
to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory and 
other property belonging to the United States. Perhaps the power 
of governing the territories belonging to the United States, which 
has not by becoming a State acquired the means of self-government, 
may result necessarily from the facts that it is not within the jurisdic- 
tion of any particular State, and is within the power and jurisdiction 
of the United States. The right to govern may be the inevitable 
consequence of the right to acquire territory. Whatever may be the 
source whence the power is derived, the possession of it is unques- 
tioned." Now, whose opinions shall weigh against those of John 



A CAMPAIGN SPEECH. 377 

Marshall, and I believe every judge on the bench then agreed with 
him? If it has pleased God ever to create a man with an intellect 
incapable of deceiving itself or being deceived by others, if Divine 
Wisdom ever endowed a human soul with the power of finding his 
way to truth safely and certainly, through all the mists of prejudice 
and all the artfully-contrived mazes of sophistry, such a mind was 
given to Chief Justice Marshall. You have heard his opinions; they 
are the doctrines on this subject of our Republican party this day. 
The executive, legislative and judicial wisdom, all accordant for sixty 
years, assure us of our faith, and call on us to persevere in our prac- 
tice. But what shall I say of the Dred Scott decision? Nothing. 
The question I am considering was not before the Court in that case, 
and therefore could not have been decided. '' Obiter dicta'' th.tr q 
may be, — discussions relating to the subject, but no judicial, no 
authoritative decision on this question was possible in that case. 

I have spoken of the Act organizing Utah and New Mexico, 
passed in 1850. You all remember the long and anxious debate 
which preceded the passage of that law ; the fearful forebodings of 
some, the threats of dissolution of the Union by others — it was 
indeed a sad spectacle, a dark day. It came upon us by our con- 
quest of Mexico. The treaty which terminated the Mexican war, 
gave us New Mexico and California. The treaty, I say, gave us 
these provinces, but I should have said, it gave them up after we, 
by strong hand, had wrenched them from weak Mexico. The treaty 
was the deed of conveyance, the right, if right it may be called, was 
founded in the bloody victories of Buena Vista, Cerro Gordo, 
Chepultepec and Molino del Rey. The evidences of our title, are 
the graves of many thousands of our noble and heroic children. 
There was one bearing a humble part in your national councils then, 
who desired to put an end to that Mexican war before you had 
obtained these provinces. I shall not name that man. He ventured 
to prophesy that it would come to no good end ; that when you had 
obtained this territory, whether by conquest or purchase, this very 
question of the extension of Slavery into it would arise ; that it 
would be a firebrand in our magazine ; it would excite a spirit of dis- 
cord, which, in its wild and ungovernable fury, might rend the fam- 
ily ties of the Union, and scatter us in disordered fragments away, 
far and forever away, from the good old family home builded for us 
by our fathers, in which we had so long and so happily dwelt. For 
this that man was burned in effigy often, but yet not burned up. 



378 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

This prediction was not very far from its fulfillment in 1850, if all 
the sinister aspects of that day may be trusted as giving "signs of 
the times." It was, perhaps, proper that we should be visited with 
troubles in managing such conquests. Retribution is with the God 
of the nations. May we not forget where that power is lodged by a 
certain Constitution enacted before time began, to be in full force 
throughout all eternity to come. 

I ask you, my fellow-citizens, is there ever to be an end of this 
question? What does the Judge tell you when he decides a case? 
He tells you, in the language of the law, that "it is expedient for 
the country that there should be an end to the question." Your law 
titles depend upon that. Would you not consider it strange, if, 
twenty years after, another court should come and decide the con- 
trary? A sensible court would say, this has been decided twenty 
years ago, argued legally, and "it is expedient for the country that 
there should be an end to the question." If you want to have a 
written constitution that you can rely on at all, you must have an 
interpretation put upon the words, and let it read that way until the 
people choose to change it by altering the words, otherwise a written 
constitution will be made to read this thing one year, and another 
thing another year. 

Now, I wish to read, for the special benefit of weak brethren, a 
few words from a couple of the apostles of modern Democracy. On 
the 4th day of March, 1850, John C. Calhoun (the Compromise Bill 
of Mr. Clay being then under discussion in the Senate ) spoke as fol- 
lows: "In claiming the right for the inhabitants, instead of Con- 
gress, to legislate for the territories in the executive proviso, it 
assumes that the sovereignty over the Territories is vested in the for- 
mer, or to express it in the language used in a resolution offered by 
one of the Senators from Texas ( Gen. Houston ), they have the same 
inherent right of self-government as the people of the States. This 
assumption is utterly unfounded, unconstitutional and contrary to 
the entire practice of the Government from its commencement to the 
present time." Mr. Calhoun then goes on with his comments upon 
the subject, and says, "Nor is it less clear that the power of legislat- 
ing over the acquired territory is vested in Congress, and not, as is 
assumed, in the inhabitants of the Territories." Thus far Mr. Cal- 
houn in 1850. 

On the 2nd day of June, 1850, this same subject being still 
under discussion, Mr. Douglas thus delivers himself of his opinions. 



A CAMPAIGN SPEECH. 379 

Let it not be forgotten that Mr. D. must have reflected much and 
long on this very subject, as he had long served as Chairman of the 
Committee on Territories. I read from his reported speech, doubt- 
less carefully revised by himself: "But, sir, I do not hold the doc- 
trine, that to exclude any species of property by law, from any ter- 
ritory, is a violation of any right to property. Do you not exclude 
banks from most of the Territories? Do you not exclude whisky 
from being introduced into large portions of the territory of the 
United States? Do you not exclude gambling-tables, which are 
properly recognized as such, in the States where they are tolerated? 
And, has any one contended that the exclusion of ardent spirits was 
a violation of any Constitutional privilege or right ? and yet it is the 
case in a large portion of the territory of the United States; but 
there is no outcry against that, because it is the prohibition of a spe- 
cific kind of property, and not a prohibition against any section of 
the Union. Why, sir, our laws now prevent a tavern-keeper from 
going into some of the Territories of the United States, and taking a 
bar with him, and using and selling spirits there. The law also pro- 
hibits certain other descriptions of business from being carried on in 
the Territories. I am not, therefore, prepared to say that, under the 
Constitution we have not the power to pass laws excluding negro 
slaves from Territories. It involves the same principle," — (Vol. 21 
Cong. Globe, p. 1,115.) 

Now what are we to conclude from this array of the history of 
this question, and the uniform opinions of the greatest, the wisest, 
and all men down to the least? Beginning from the first establish- 
ment of our present constitutional government, and ending in 1850, 
or perhaps more properly in 1852, when Washington Territory was 
organized, reserving ultimate legislative power over that territory in 
Congress ? I ask my brother Democrats, whether of the Buchanan 
or Douglas church, shall we not adhere to the opinions of the 
** Fathers?" Have we the enormous egotism to suppose that we, we 
of this latter day, have better knowledge of the meaning of our 
political gospels than the fathers who wrote them? If you think 
and believe this folly, why then you are past praying for, and I am 
done with you. 

We have now settled our constitutional rights as to the extent 
and mode in which the Republicans propose to prevent the further 
extension of Slavery. I wish here to say, that I think this prohibi- 
tory power should be exerted as to all territory now ours, and all 



380 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

that shall become ours wherever Slavery is not established when such 
territory is acquired, with this qualification, that it must be such cli- 
mate as a white man, and the white race generally, can live and work 
in. I think it is a question not yet settled whether the white race, 
our white race, can work and live in health, in very hot latitudes. 

Let us look for a moment into our duties under the Constitution 
toward the slaveholding States. Much excitement has existed in 
Ohio and elsewhere about the "Fugitive Slave Bill" — so it is famil- 
iarly called. This subject has not yet been fairly and dispassionately 
presented to the people. It may have been so presented to courts 
and in courts, but not, as I believe, in our popular meetings. The 
act of 1850 has many objectionable provisions which are easily mis- 
understood, and which are altogether useless and of no avail in the 
practical operation of the law. I should not have voted for that law 
had I been in the Senate when it passed. I prefer the old law of 
1793 ; it is free from most of the follies of the present law, and it is 
just as easy to reclaim a fugitive under the first as under the law of 
1850. I understand that some in Ohio, and it may be some on the 
Kentucky side, have supposed that any man from Kentucky who 
comes here in pursuit of a fugitive, a runaway negro, can command 
a citizen of Ohio to aid him in catching him. This is said to be the 
opinion in Kentucky. I should like to know if this be so. My 
friend, Mr. Moore, now on the rostrum, recently, I am happy to 
inform you, elected to Congress from the district in Kentucky oppo- 
site to us, can say whether this be so. 

Here Mr. MooRE observed, "That is so." 

Well, that may be your construction, but you, and all in Ohio, 
who have (as I believe), to render this law odious, maintained this 
construction, are all mistaken. The law requires no such thing ; it 
could not compel us here to do so, were a thousand laws made for 
that purpose. I know the act of 1850 requires all citizens to aid the 
master or his agent, or the officer having process to arrest a fugitive, 
when such master, his agent, or the officer is resisted by a mob or 
any force which cannot be repelled without such aid. 

Mr. Moore here remarked, " We say as you do, if we are resisted then you must 
aid us." 

Exactly so, such is the law. Now this is precisely what is 
enjoined by the laws of Ohio, and I suppose all the States, when the 
execution of the laws is forcibly resisted. In such case, we do not 



A CAMPAIGN SPEECH. 381 

aid in reclaiming a slave, but we aid in suppressing a mob, we aid in 
putting down forcible resistance to law, to our law, for all laws of 
the United States are the laws made by the representatives of all the 
people of the United States. But some of our people, some who 
act with us, very few I think, say this law is not a binding law, 
because it is contrary to the Constitution, and above all, they say it 
is opposed to the "natural inherent rights of man." Now, I have 
to say as to the first of these objections, the courts, both state and 
federal, have decided that this law is not contrary to the United 
States Constitution, and that Congress had power to enact that law. 
The Supreme Court of Ohio has very recently, on solemn argument, 
so decided. This is enough for me and all law-abiding men. We 
must obey and not resist that law. If we do not think it a good 
law, why go to the ballot-box, elect men who will alter or repeal it. 
The cartridge-box is not to be resorted to in this country in such 
matters ; that other more harmless box, the ballot-box, is our resort 
in all such cases. If the majority is against us, why we must sub- 
mit. There can be no government possible, if any and every indi- 
vidual may determine for himself what law he will obey and what 
he will not obey. As to the inherent right of a slave to run away 
from his master, why this inherent right ceases, if the Constitution 
has said his master may follow him and reclaim him. I think, in 
such a case, the master's constitutional rights will be likely to van- 
quish the slave's "inherent" right. We can have no inherent rights 
in our Government which conflict with rights established by our 
organic law, else in the case put by me now, we must be driven to 
declare the United States Constitution itself to be unconstitutional. 
This would be the grossest nonsense. But what says the Constitu- 
tion? In the fourth article and the last paragraph in section two, 
you can read these words : ' ' No person held to service or labor in 
one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in con- 
sequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such 
service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to 
whom such service or labor may be due." Now, you see, my 
RepubUcan friends, that we are required by this clause of that sacred 
instrument not to help away a fugitive or resist his capture, but it 
requires of us that he "shall be delivered up on claim of the party to 
whom his service or labor maybe due." This, in plain words, means 
that a slave who runs away from Kentucky, shall be by us deliv- 
ered to his master when he, the master or his agent, comes here after 



382 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

him. Now you, the Repubhcan party, claim that your Congress 
may prohibit Slavery in Territories. How came you by such right? 
Only by virtue of this very United States Constitution can you claim 
to do this. Is it not fair, then, that the right of your Southern 
brother to reclaim his runaway slave, given to him in this same Con- 
stitution, should be conceded to him. Will you take so much of the 
Constitution as you like to-day, and abrogate what you don't like ? 
Yet this is just the thing, this is the absurdity which some few peo- 
ple, well-meaning men, perhaps, seem to require of us. I proclaim 
here to-day to all whom it may concern, that such is not the doc- 
trine of the Republican party of Ohio. If this were its doctrine it 
would dwindle into a contemptible minority in one day after it 
should be made known. 

There is another question sometimes mooted in and out of Con- 
gress, dividing, it is said, the North and the South : Shall any more 
slave States be admitted into the Union ? Now I wish to answer this 
question for myself If you will conquer or purchase any state, 
province or territory, wherein Slavery is an established institution, 
and agree, as you did in the Louisiana treaty, to admit such province, 
island or Territory into the Union, with such rights as belong to the 
original States, then I say you must admit them with their Slavery. 
Such treaty is the supreme law of the land. It is so declared by the 
Constitution. To that supreme law you must submit, in the case I 
have supposed. Let me here read an extract from a speech of John 
Quincy Adams in Congress, on the admission of Arkansas into the 
Union, in 1836: 

" Mr. Chairman — I cannot, consistently with my sense of ray obligations as a 
citizen of the United States, and bound by oath to support their Constitution, I cannot 
object to the admission of Arkansas into the Union as a slave State, as Louisiana, and 
Mississippi, and Alabama, and Missouri have been admitted by virtue of that article in 
the treaty for the acquisition of Louisiana, which secures to the inhabitants of the ceded 
territories all the rights, privileges and immunities of the original citizens of the United 
States, and stipulates for their admission, conformably to that principle, into the Union. 
Louisiana was purchased as a country wherein Slavery was the established law of the 
land. As Congress have not power in time of peace to abolish Slavery in the original 
States of the Union, they are equally destitute of the power in those parts of the ter- 
ritory ceded by France to the United States, by the name of Louisiana, where Slavery 
existed at the time of the acquisition. Slavery is in this Union the subject of internal 
legislation in the States, and in peace is cognizable by Congress, only as it is tacitly 
tolerated and protected where it exists by the Constitution of the United States, and as 
it mingles in their intercourse with other nations. Arkansas therefore comes, and has 
the right to come, into the Union with her slaves and with her slave laws. It is writ- 
ten in the bond, and, however I may lament that it ever was so written, I must faith- 
fully perform its obligations." 



A CAMPAIGN SPEECH. 383 

Mr. Adams was not the man to favor Slavery, but he was the 
man to follow, with fearless intrepidity, the dictates of truth, justice 
and honor. He well understood, if any man ever did, the powers 
of the States and of the General Government, and he would not 
flinch from the great paramount duty of an American statesman in 
yielding to each that which belonged to each. My opinion is, and 
always was, what he has so happily expressed in the extract which I 
have read. Let us suppose that you purchase the Island of Cuba, 
which, by-the-way, you will not do soon — Cuba has a well and long- 
established institution called Slavery — you will not, probably, (as 
you did not in the case of California and New Mexico ) ask the con- 
sent of the people of Cuba to come into the Union or under your 
government in any form. What is the great and universally ac- 
cepted d6gma on which all your institutions rest? It is thus 
expressed, "all rightful power of government is derived from the 
consent of the people to be governed." When you buy from the 
king or queen of Spain the right to govern the Island and people of 
Cuba, will you provide that the purchase money shall not be paid 
until the consent of the people to the transfer shall be given by a 
vote of all the white male inhabitants of the Island? If you will, 
then you will never get Cuba, unless you take her with Slavery. 
The people will not consent to come under your yoke unless you 
take Slavery as an established law also. If you provide for their 
admission into the Union with equal rights with the other States, 
then your former practice, and Mr. Adams's opinion, and mine, 
and that of every other man who regards the sanctity of treaties, 
will settle the question. 

My friends, I must conclude. I have exhausted my strength, 
and am sure I have overtaxed your patience. One word of advice 
at parting. If you wish to silence, for our time and for a long time, 
this disturbing and dangerous question of Slavery, you have nothing 
to do but resolve that you will acquire no more territory for the 
next twenty years. That which you now have will never raise the 
question ; it is that which you expect to get which gives the ques- 
tion all its real importance. You already have about one-tenth part of 
the globe, within your territorial limits. Be content with that — 
cultivate well what you have ; raise up men, good men, honest men ; 
improve the animal man, and be not too careful to extend your 
power. This done, and the South and the North, and the East and 
the West will rush into each other's arms, and cling closer to each 



384 .SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

Other on account of the former partial estrangement. Then we shall 
be indeed citizens, fellow-citizens of one country, and that country 
free, powerful and happy — all, all uniting in thankfulness to God for 
the happy times in which we live, the great country we live in, and 
the glorious institutions we live under. God bless you all, my 
friends. I have given you much good advice to-day, much of which 
I fear some will not follow. I charge you nothing for it, but believe 
me and try it. I am sure if you will, it shall profit you quite as 
much as counsel for which I dare say some of you have often paid 
what you may have thought was a very large fee. 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 



A SPEECH IN THE SPEAKERSHIP CONTEST IN THE HOUSE OF REP- 
RESENTATIVES, JANUARY 23 AND 24, i860. 



The Thirty-Sixth Congress, to which Mr. Corwin had been elected a Represent- 
ative, met on Monday, December 5th, 1859. There was an unprecedented delay in 
the organization of the House. The Republican members supported Hon. John Sher- 
man, of Ohio, for Speaker, but no party had a clear majority. The Slavery question 
was introduced after the first ballot for Speaker by Hon. John B. Clark, of Missouri, 
who offered a resolution condemning a book entitled, " The Impending Crisis of the 
South — How to Meet It," by Hinton R. Helper, and declaring that no member who 
had recommended it was fit to be Speaker. Mr. Sherman and a large majority of the 
Republican members of the last Congress had signed a circular commending the work 
to general attention. Thus the House plunged into a discussion of Slavery and Slavery 
agitation, John Brown and Helper's Impending Crisis, with occasional ballots for 
Speaker, Mr. Sherman's vote rising to 112, when 116 were necessary to a choice. After 
eight weeks had been thus spent Mr. Sherman withdrew and ex-Governor William 
Pennington, of New Jersey, was elected. Before the close of this memorable contest, 
on Monday, January 23rd, i860, Mr. Corwin rose and spoke as follows : 

Mr. Clerk : I rise to inquire what is the subject under discus- 
sion at this time? [Laughter]. 

The Clerk — The question before the House is the point of order raised 
by the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Curtis] on Thursday last. 

Mr. Corwin — Then the speech of the gentleman from Missis- 
sippi [Mr. JBarksdale], to which we have listened with a good deal 
of interest, has been made, I understand, upon the point of order. 

The gentleman from Mississippi wants to get rid of this cum- 
brous business, and I will say to him that the only way to accom- 
plish it is by voting ; and I say further to him, that if he should be 
elected, I will pledge him that the State of Ohio will not dissolve the 
Union on that account. Now, this is a very serious matter, though, 
at the same time, it so happens that almost every good or grave sub- 
ject discussed by men will have something ludicrous about it. This 
farce which we have been enacting for seven weeks, very much to 
our amusement, is, as we hear it very frequently remarked, and 
26 (385) 



386 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

sometimes much to the disturbance of some gentlemen here, begin- 
ning to be, in the minds of the people of this country, a serious 
matter. If every gentleman here who has a duty to discharge, and 
who was sent here to do the business of this great Republic, would 
put this matter to his conscience as he does other subjects which 
involve questions of conscientious duty, surely we would begin to 
think seriously what we have to do. 

I know that there are some very plausible arguments — and to 
me they are difficult to get over — in favor of electing a Speaker of 
the House by the majority of votes of members. I was reminded 
the other day by one of my friends, resident in this city, with whom 
I have long had most agreeable and friendly intercourse — a gentle- 
man in good standing with the present Administration, and therefore 
I do not wish to give his name, lest it might bring him into disre- 
pute [ laughter] — that there was something in the election of Speaker 
more than I had supposed ; that in a certain event he might become 
President of the United States. I confess that puzzled me a little. 
It may be so ; but I do not think it important that we should incor- 
porate that idea into our purposes, as one of the contingencies that 
may arise. It is hardly possible that any two gentlemen who are or 
may be elected President and Vice-President will be amiable enough 
to die for the benefit of the Speaker of this House. I do not know 
what God in His providence may have in store for us. Such a con- 
tingency has , never happened, and therefore I think we should not 
give it a marked place in our consideration of the question of the 
Speakership of this House. Something has been said by the gentle- 
man from Mississippi touching this very subject; and I, reserving my 
rights under such rules of order as we may hereafter establish, desire 
to say something on the general propositions that have been so ably 
presented to the House by the gentleman from Mississippi. 

The gentleman read, as the bitterest drop in the cup, some par- 
agraphs from the Helper book, advising that the free laboring popu- 
lation of the South, not holding slaves, shall abstain from communi- 
cation with those who do own slaves. Now, I wish to ask gentle- 
men of the .South what they suppose would be the result of placing 
this book in the hands of the non-slaveholding people of the South ? 
The question would simply be submitted by those non-slaveholding 
men of the South to the whole State, whether Slavery should be 
abolished or not ; and if it should be determined to abolish Slavery, 
would anybody have a right to complain of a State for abolishing 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 387 

Slavery, more than to complain of her for adopting it? Gentlemen 
have greatly overrated the consequences of that little book. I know 
that they say, or have said, that it shows the disposition of the 
North to interfere with Slavery in the South. How does it show 
that disposition? It was written, as everybody knows, by a man 
who had his citizenship or habitation in North Carolina until he left 
there to go to the city of New York. Who is to blame, then, if we 
may trace back effect to cause? You say that Mr. Seward made a 
speech in Rochester, some time in the year of grace 1858, and that 
from that came the invasion of Virginia, by twenty-three men, 
headed by John Brown. 

Sir, if North Carolina had not brought up this man among her 
own slave institutions, we never should have had the Helper book. 
No Northern man has written such a book, and if he had written 
such a book, is it possible that any institution existing in a Christian 
and enlightened community like the South can be overthrown by a 
pamphlet? In a congregation of children of the same family, I 
should avoid a subject which might disturb our relations. I would 
not like to throw into the face of my brother one of his evil habits ; 
jior would you, my friends. 

Mr. Clerk, history will show that Mr. Seward, if he be the great 
leader of the Republican party — and I have almost given up all pre- 
tensions to their leadership since I have been loudly and positively 
repudiated by one side of the House, and some on this side have 
said pretty much the same thing — I say that Mr. Seward has never 
uttered a sentiment, and that one cannot be cited in all the extracts 
which have been quoted from his speeches or his arguments, more 
offensive to the South than Thomas Jefferson, the apostle of Democ- 
racy, did utter. I know that my friends from the South are too well 
acquainted with the history of that great man, not to know, as I 
know, that neither Mr. Seward, nor any other Republican — I except 
the Abolitionists, for they are not Republicans, but, on the contrary, 
generally hold the Republican party in utter scorn — I say that in 
Helper's book nothing is to be found, so far as I know, more offen- 
sive than utterances long since found in writings and speeches of the 
■elder men of the South. George Washington himself always said 
while he lived that he should wish, if it were possible, to see Slavery 
abolished in the United States. I know that Mr. Seward, whose 
election as President of the United States, it is said, will be the signal 
for civil war in this great Confederacy, has never said anything more 



388 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

offensive to the South than has been said by your ambassador whom 
you have lately commissioned to France, (Mr. Faulkner, of Virginia,) 
taking it for granted that the extracts which I have seen quoted from 
his speeches are true extracts. 

The eloquent gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Barksdale] is 
very much afraid of the establishment, by the gentleman from Mas- 
sachusetts [Mr. Burlingame], of an anti-Slavery Bible. Sir, that 
Bible is a book without which, in my judgment, no society can very 
well exist and hope to advance in morals or otherwise. And yet I 
warn gentlemen, North and South, that it is a book which it will not 
do for us to look to alone to guide us in the organization of political 
society of the present day. We find, in the historical parts of that 
book, brief sketches of the laws, usages and doings of the people 
of the Old World, which, if not read and pondered more carefully 
than such as we are apt to do, will lead to great errors in legislation 
in this age and country. We find there enacted very much such 
scenes, thousands and thousands of years ago, as we have been en- 
deavoring to enact in this little sphere of ours — about a tenth part, 
I suppose, of this habitable globe — which, of itself, to the mind of 
Isaac Newton, or Herschell, or La Place, if they had not been born 
and lived here, would seem to be a very insignificant portion of the 
universe. And yet, one would suppose, from the debates we have 
had here, that we really believed the happiness of all worlds, and 
certainly of untold generations, depended upon the election of A or 
B, to stand up there in that chair, like a "woodpecker tapping a hol- 
low beech tree." [Great laughter]. That tapping, sir, has been to 
us, so far, the only exhibition of power or influence belonging to 
that office, about which we have been in angry contest for the last 
six weeks. We become so accustomed to the sound, that we do not 
think we are in order unless we hear that tapping. We do not think 
we are in Congress, unless somebody is calling us to order, accom- 
panied, too, by that continuous ever-recurring tapping. 

But, sir, I was referring to the allusion made by the gentleman 
from Mississippi to the gentleman from Massachusetts, and an "anti- 
Slavery Bible." How is this, sir? One wants an anti-Slavery Bible, 
and he is sure he has it in our present version. Another wants a 
pro-Slavery Bible, and he is equally certain he has it in the same 
sacred book. Let each be content with his belief, and not interfere 
//r?^ with that of his brother; let us not dissolve the Union upon con- 
flicting constructions of the Bible. I think it is certain that those 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 389 

patriarchs held slaves, and that they transmitted them to their chil- 
dren ; but they did not make slaves of their own people ; and some 
other things are very certain. This fugitive slave law that we hear 
so much about ; I will not pretend to go into particulars, but I think 
it will appear that it, or a rule something like it, had its construc- 
tions and repeals in the Bible time. 

I think that when the bondwoman Hagar left Abraham, with 
her master's consent, there being some disturbance in his domestic 
relations, [ much laughter ] the boy Ishmael, not being the child of 
promise, and being in the habit of making impertinent remarks 
about the conduct of family affairs, [ laughter ] was sent off with his 
mother into the wilderness, with a loaf of bread and a bottle of 
water. We are told that Hagar, being exhausted and famished by 
hunger, laid the boy down to die, and that the Angel of the Lord 
came there. If I remember aright, it is so written in that book. 
And what advice did he give to this bondwoman and her son? The 
Angel told this woman that she was in very bad circumstances, but 
not to be discouraged ; to pick up the boy and hold him in her 
hands, for he would become a great filibuster. [Roars of laughter.] 
That is the English of what the Angel said, when you use our pres- 
ent word for expressing the idea conveyed by the record of this 
remarkable historical fact. His hand would be against every man, 
and every man's hand would be against him. That declaration has 
been literally fulfilled in the progeny of that boy up to this very 
hour; and the only nation that has made any impression upon his 
posterity has been the French in Algiers. The French killed off 
these filibusters, until they have got them into some very imperfect 
kind of obedience. From the day that the Angel of God made that 
prophecy in reference to this slave boy, his progeny have gone on 
filibustering, fighting and robbing. This good quality they have 
had, I believe, in all their history; if you broke their bread and 
tasted their salt, they would die by you. I would that some of our 
Southern friends would treat some of our Yankee gentlemen as well 
when they go amongst them. [Laughter.] The Angel told this 
mother that she had better go back into Slavery. If that Angel had 
been an agent of the underground railway, then this mother would 
have been advised to take herself and son off to Canada. [Laughter.] 

So much for the historical fact. That very able man who was 
the father of that boy had another family, and they, in a generation 
or two after this, were sold into Slavery, and so they remained, we 



390 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

are told, for four hundred and seventy years. At the end of that 
time God abolished that servitude and repealed the fugitive slave 
law, very much to the dismay and astonishment of the pursuing 
masters, and greatly to the gratification of those owing labor and ser- 
vice to them. Then he allowed them to go home — to their Africa, 
or, to speak without figure, to the home of their fathers. That re- 
peal of the Egyptian fugitive slave bill, on the shore of the Red Sea, 
with all its incidents, is worthy of some notice now, and at all times. 
We hear much said of women taking part in politics now-a-days. 
Something very like it occurred on the occasion to which I refer. 
Just as the bubbling death-groan of the Egyptian host had risen to 
the surface of the sea, and was borne away upon the hot breath of 
the winds, a woman, a notable woman, then and there broke forth in 
a very remarkable triumphal song. Miriam, the sister of Aaron, 
with all the dark-eyed daughters of the fugitive Hebrew slaves, 
shouted out, "Sing ye to the Lord, for gloriously hath He triumphed ; 
the horse and his rider hath He cast into the sea." That was their 
"Hail Columbia." Sir, that song of the prophetess has rung in my 
ears in day, and often in night time, too. In my dreams of the ulti- 
mate destiny of man, I have supposed it would ring in the ears and 
agitate the souls of men till the words "kings and subjects, rulers 
and ruled," should be lost in two words, "brothers — sisters." 

Mr. Clerk, I warn my brethren from the North and my brethren 
from the South, that they will scarcely agree as to what are the general 
teachings of the Bible on this subject of Slavery as practiced in our 
times. I think parts of that Book very clearly inculcate the doctrine 
which in our republican form of government is held very sacred by 
us, that the laws of the country, as they were established, should be 
obeyed by all good citizens. Certainly, Christ and the Apostles 
taught that they did not come to overturn Governments, but to 
search into the wicked hearts of men, and subvert the kingdom of 
Satan therein. The gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Burling- 
ame], I dare say, can find some authority satisfactory to him for his 
doctrine, and the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Barksdale] for 
his; but both should draw the true moral, as philosophical Christian 
historians would do, and agree that that Book teaches us one lesson, 
at least, which in substance is, that in a country like ours, where 
every man has an agency in the making of the laws, all should ren- 
der to them obedience, until they shall be made better or be repealed. 
For unless the laws shall be generally obeyed, we will have nothing 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 391 

but anarchy organized, which cannot be a condition pleasing to Him 
who is the common Father of all men. Hence the Republican doc- 
trine is, that the laws of the country ought to be obeyed. I assert 
that our Republican leaders, generals, colonels, majors, captains, 
corporals and privates, all of them, are conservative ; and that the 
Republican party is a law-abiding party ; and whosoever believes the 
contrary, labors under great ignorance of that party and the men 
who compose it, 

Mr, Clerk, I wish to look for one moment at some other facts 
found in the historical portion of the Bible, having a curious bearing, 
at least, on this question of Negro Slavery. We are told in that 
same Book that the people of the globe, except eight, were 
destroyed in a deluge, Noah and his family only were preserved. 
That old patriarch seems to have been remarkable for nothing, so far 
as I can find out, except for his strong faith in the word of God, and 
his remarkable nautical adventure. Noah had three sons, from whom 
have sprung all the people now upon the face of this globe. We 
are told by sacred, and I think pretty fully, too, by profane histor- 
ians, that Japhet is the father of our race. We, then, are all chil- 
dren of that man. We have, it is true, to go far back to get at it. 
He is our oxigmdX propositus. Shem is the father of the migratory, 
wandering Asiatic family. Ham, it is said, was the father of the 
negroes. This, I think it will be found, is shown by our accredited 
historical books. Some have wondered how it happened that Japhet, 
born of the same mother, son of the same father, should be a gentle- 
man with features and complexion like you and myself; Shem, a yel- 
low fellow, with high cheek bones ; and Ham, a negro, with black face 
and crisp, curled hair. This difficulty is surmounted by one class of 
ethnologists by attributing the difference to climatic influences, in 
which I think there is great plausibility. Be this as it may, the rela- 
tionship is the same. Japhet, it is agreed, had large acquisitiveness, 
and hence his superiority ; and it may be said, with equal truth, that 
his children are not deficient in this capital virtue, for such it is held 
to be in our times by us in this model Republic. They also, it is 
said, have quick and powerful faculties for numerals ; and regard in 
theory, as well as practice, the multiplication tables as the acme of 
human knowledge. But let us look at this family imbroglio. We 
are the sons of Japhet, and the negro is the son of Ham ; we are the 
sons, respectively, of these two brothers; and consequently we, the 
sons of Japhet, are cousins to Cuffee, he being the son of our Uncle 



392 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

Ham. I have often thought if the negro, as seems from this account 
of us to be probable, had really that relationship to us, that we cer- 
tainly had not treated our cousin like a gentleman. [Renewed 
laughter]. 

So you see there are some curious reflections belonging to the 
subject. But, short-sighted mortals as we are, all we can do now is 
to look at the black man as he is, and the white man as Jie is. One 
of your statesmen of the South, whom I have had the pleasure of 
knowing for a good many years — I allude to Mr. Stephens, of Geor- 
gia — in a recent speech, said that he was in favor of Mr. Seward's 
higher law, not exactly in its application, but he said, that if it be 
not better for the white man as well as the black man, that one 
should be master and the other the slave, they had no business with 
Slavery, and should surrender it. I give the substance, but perhaps 
not the exact words. All who have read that gentleman's speech to 
the people of Georgia will know that I quote him fairly. That, I 
think, is the true philosophic ground upon which to put it. If it be 
better that the negro should stand in the relation of slave, better for 
all concerned, then Slavery is right. If the converse be true, then 
Slavery is wrong, and of course, if it be possible, should be peace- 
ably abolished. Thus this vexed question is stated and submitted to 
the world by a living, leading Southern statesman. Let calm reason 
and fair discussion by those whom it concerns ascertain the truth. 
The path of duty is then made plain to all. 

I am not now and here about to argue for either side of the 
question thus generally propounded; but one thing I will say: It is 
not a good thing for white or black men to hold negroes as slaves in 
the State of Ohio, because we have tried it. We are sure it is 
better that the black slave should not be where the white man has to 
work by the side of him. It is better, we think, that the work of 
our State should be done by its white men. We have concluded, 
without any doubt, that wherever the white man can live aitd wot'k, 
there, at least, no system of forced labor should exist. It has been 
ordained that man shall "earn his bread by the sweat of his brow." 
There are but very few men living on the face of the earth, if they 
live honestly, who are not compelled to do something, by head or 
hand, or both, for their own subsistence. For instance: In the 
whole fifteen Southern States there are only about four hundred thou- 
sand who own slaves. 

Mr. Keitt, (in his seat) — Heads of families. 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 393 

Mr. Corwin — I was speaking of the heads of famiUes. That 
may involve an interest of two millions of people. Let it be so. I 
am not particular about it. There are eight million white people at 
the South, are there not? I wish there were one hundred million, 
for I want the South to be strong. A great majority of the South- 
ern people must labor at something, as I doubt not they do. They 
who own slaves are the exceptions to this old rule. I am not about 
to make any invidious or ungracious remarks on these two classes of 
people. I am free to admit, and happy to say, with truth, that, 
North and South, we are the most favored and the happiest people 
that ever lived in the tide of time, and I think the history of the 
world will prove it. But we will not allow ourselves to think so ; we 
are like Mr. Brown in the farce — we will allow ourselves to be 
"excited!" As there is no hostile flag from any part of the globe 
to disturb the repose of our thirty millions of free people, we, of 
course — such is the frailty and unsatisfied nature of man — will find 
causes for fearful conflict, at least among ourselves. And yet I 
would under no circumstances vote to furnish men and means to 
carry on war abroad, merely for the sake of avoiding internal strife. 
I prefer what I am sure, if we are not a doomed people, is easy and 
practicable, to put our passions and party animosities under recogni- 
zance to keep the peace where we are. 

Now, as to the reason, so often demanded on the other side of 
the House, why the people of the North would prohibit Slavery in the 
Territories of the United States. I shall be prepared, I hope, to 
discuss this subject without excitement, fully, whenever it properly 
comes before us, after this House shall organize. But I cannot for- 
bear a hasty view of the subject, even now. It is called for by the 
great misapprehension of gentlemen on the other side, and the 
denunciations, founded on that misapprehension, to which we have, 
up to this time, listened with a most exemplary patience. The 
Republican party does claim, and has always claimed, and the Demo- 
cratic party always claimed until about the year 1852, throughout all 
the North, that Congress had plenary and unquestionable power, 
under the Constitution of the United States, to prohibit Negro Slav- 
ery in Territories, and that it is the duty of Congress to exert that 
power whenever Slavery did not exist in any Territory where the 
white man could live and work. My Democratic friend from Ohio 
[Mr. Vallandigham] stated here, a few days ago, that the Demo- 
cratic party had been wrong upon that subject — meaning that they 



394 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

had heretofore conceded this power, and insisted on its exercise. 
Now, it is certain, to look at it historically, that, in the progress of 
your Government, the first founders of it did proceed upon that prin- 
ciple. The ordinance of 1787 was made under the old Confedera- 
tion ; it was made by very many of the men who sat in the Conven- 
tion which formed the present Constitution of the United States ; and 
Virginia, by all her delegates, voted for that ordinance. 

Mr. Millson — There is no doubt, as the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. 
Corwin] has remarked, that the opinions which he has imputed to Washing- 
ton, Jefferson and other distinguished statesmen of the ante-Revolutionary 
period, were entertained by them. But it should be remembered that it was 
before the abolition of the African slave trade that those views were 
expressed. It was while standing in the living presence of the victims of 
that traffic that their opinions were formed. It was natural, sir, and almost 
unavoidable, that they should think on Slavery only as a part of that legal- 
ized system of rapine and plunder. They at least would regard it as the 
motive prompting men to the perpetration of crime. They did not see Slav- 
ery as we see it. Indeed, sir, it was not then, as it is now, a social system 
established between two classes of our own native population, intended to 
promote the welfare and happiness of both ; an institution of society, estab- 
lishing a just and wise subordination and dependence between two races, liv- 
ing together in almost equal numbers, who socially never could be equal, and 
whom, therefore, political equahty would convert into fierce and implacable 
enemies. 

Mr. Corwin — I thank the gentleman. That is what I was 
going to say myself, but the gentleman has expressed it much better 
than I should have done it. I was about to refer to that ordinance 
of 1787, whence I deduce the conclusion that the men of that day 
did believe that it was the best thing they could do with the five 
States provided for in that ordinance, to prohibit Negro Slavery 
there. 

Mr. Smith, of Virginia — Will the gentleman permit me to say a word 
here ? Mr. Madison expressly states that the object of that prohibition was 
to take away the field left open for the importation of Africans 

Mr. Corwin — I was about to speak of that opinion of Mr. Mad- 
ison. I know from conversations, which even so young a man as 
myself has had with the men of that period, that Virginia had some 
reasons for agreeing to the prohibition of Slavery in that part of the 
Territory, altogether unconnected with the institution of Slavery. 
But I shall insist that the main reasons were the objections to Slavery 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 395 

itself, Virginia was then a great State, as she is now. "There were 
giants in those days." She was afraid that the rich lands of the 
Northwest, with Slavery tolerated there, would induce eminent men 
whom she had at home, to go there ; and she did not wish to part 
with those illustrious men. She wished to keep them where they 
were. Virginia wanted then, as she wants now, and as every State 
wants, to keep as much greatness and as much glory in their old 
homes as possible. Something like that was in operation then. But 
I can hardly suppose that that was the controlling motive with the 
great men who did that great act. Their often-expressed abhorrence 
of Slavery proves it was not. A great act it was for good, for last- 
ing good, as subsequent events have shown. It was provided that 
all the States that were to come into the Federal Union under that 
ordinance should prohibit Slavery; and it was under that provision 
that Ohio, the first State that came in under it, excluded Slavery in 
her State Constitution. 

Now, what did the men of that day believe ? They were wise 
men, philosophic statesmen. The terrific storm of the Revolution 
had blown over them ; and we all know that the minds of men, after 
having been much agitated, and relieved from the causes of that agi- 
tation, then become so calm that in no period of their lives are they 
so well situated for cool reason or calm reflection as immediately 
after such an event. They were Americans. They were Republic- 
ans ; I do not use the terms in a party sense. They called them- 
selves Republicans. We call ourselves so now, and we do believe 
we are following in our principles this day right after them. What 
I beg anybody to convince me of is, that I am mistaken. When so 
convinced, if that be possible, I shall surely acknowledge my mis- 
take, and abandon my present convictions. The great, *the good as 
well as great men of 1787 ordained by law that there never should be 
any Slavery in that part of Virginia which had been ceded to the 
United States by the deed of 1784. Would they have done so if 
they had considered Slavery to be a good institution ? I think not. 
There was no overruling necessity for such a prohibition, arising out 
of circumstances unconnected with Slavery. It was their belief that 
the greatest blessing they could bestow upon these five new States 
was the prohibition of Negro Slavery. They thought that an indus- 
trious, intelligent community of free white men, having no degraded 
labor among them, was the best community that could be established. 
I suppose they had read Montesquieu, and believed with him, that 



396 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

without virtue, honesty and intelligence, a Republic is impossible. 
I suppose that is a maxim on which everybody agrees. They be- 
lieved that sort of a system would be best promoted in a country 
where white men can work, by saying that there should be no forced 
labor there. 

I am not considering nozv whether or not these great men were 
mistaken. I only wish, at this point, to say, that this much abused 
Republican party, so much misunderstood to-day, is acting exactly 
as these men acted in 1787, who, whether under the Constitution or 
under the Articles of Confederation, forbade Slavery in all the North- 
western country, and forbade it because they thought it, as all their 
declarations at that time prove, a great evil. I mean to say — and I 
hope all sides of this House will understand me to say — that if 
the men of 1787 had believed that Slavery was not only a benign 
institution, but one that was friendly to the white man in that cli- 
mate, they would not have prohibited it. They were not the kind of 
men to do anything for party expediency. They were not contend- 
ing as to who should hammer this House to order. They were lay- 
ing deep the foundations of this mighty Empire ; and they acted 
under the profound responsibility which such a condition of thirigs 
imposed. They spoke with sincerity, they acted with sincerity, in 
the presence of that God who they believed, and I believe, had most 
manifestly bared his right arm in every battle-field of the Revolution 
in favor of our right of self-government and independence. They, 
then, seeing that there was a territory not yet comprehended within 
the limits of any State, having no power to do anything as a State, 
prohibited the existence of Slavery therein. That is what they did ; 
and such men must have done that act for the reason that they 
believed it right, and thought, as we Republicans think, that Slavery 
is a great evil, at least in any climate where white men and free labor- 
ers can live and work. 

That territory of Virginia, which she claimed under a very old 
charter, was no longer the territory of Virginia. It was regarded as 
territory acquired by the common blood and treasure of the people 
of the Confederacy,. just as your territories won from Mexico; and, 
under these circumstances, they then declared: "We will, under 
this Confederation, agree that there shall be no Slavery in this terri- 
-tory, thus won by the common blood and treasure of us all." They 
so ordained ; and they made it a matter of compact forever between 
the existinsT Government and the States to be formed out of that 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 397 

territory, that every such State should always exclude Slavery. I do 
not say what effect that would have under our modern notions about 
compacts. Perhaps, in modern times, we might believe that a State, 
after it came into the Union, no matter what bargain it made to get 
in, was such a mysterious and omnipotent sovereign, that all obliga- 
tions passed from it, and ceased to have binding effect. Be this as 
it may, my purpose is now to show what were the views of those 
men, the founders of our Government, respecting Slavery. That is 
the fact I wish to show. 

Now, then, suppose another Territory to be acquired by the 
common blood and the common treasure of the United States, in a 
latitude like that of the Northwestern Territory. The Republican 
party say: "We will exclude Slavery from that Territory, as 
the framers of the Constitution under the Confederation did 
exclude it from just such territory as that." And if we do that, are 
we to be charged with an attempt wilfully to subvert the institutions 
of this country and to do wrong to the South? If those Old 
Fathers of the Revolution — our Fathers, the Fathers of our Nation, 
the authors of all that we boast of, and all that is around us — if they 
acted in this way, may you not pardon us for doing just as they did? 
Are we not, at least, excusable for entertaining the opinion that it 
would be better to confine the institution to its present limits, or cer- 
tainly to exclude it from a new Territory, as they did? If you think 
they acted well and wisely upon this subject, it is your duty, under 
like circumstances, to imitate their example, not calculating too curi- 
ously, as they did not, about a few dollars' worth of slave property, 
which you may not be able to sell to, or carry with you into each 
Territory ; but considering, as they did, and pondering, deeply and 
profoundly, what is to be the effect upon the people who are to live 
in the Territories, from generation to generation and from time to 
time, during the whole period of man's history in the world. Well, 
you will say, they may have been wrong. Admit that irreverent, 
preposterous supposition, and answer me, boastful, self-sufficient 
Democracy, do you blame us for having an affectionate regard for 
the memory of those old men, and a fixed belief that their acts were 
wisely and well done, and might be safely imitated by the Demo- 
cratic sages of 1860? I hope you will not say that I am out of 
order, on either side of the House, when I declare, in the presence 
of God that I do believe, that if we had twenty of these very men 
in this House, this question would not even be mooted, and we 



398 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

should have organized in one day. We do not work as they worked ; 
we do not talk like them ; and, worst of all, we do not think as they 
thought. 

Why are we, I ask again, to be denounced as bad men for desir- 
ing to act as our fathers acted? We wish to do just what they did 
under similar circumstances. We desire, if the country gives us the 
power, to do all things rightly; and in doing so, we turn to the 
bright examples of better days for our guide. Unhappily for us, 
the North and the South have no confidence in each other, and mad- 
ness rules the hour. You think you have diverse and opposing 
interests. This is all a mistake — a great mistake. Whatever pro- 
motes the interest of Alabama and Mississippi is, in a national point 
of view, equally favorable to the interest of the State of Ohio. One 
gentleman has spoken of Ohio as an Empire State. If she be such 
a State, is not Alabama made stronger by her connection with a 
strong rather than a weak State ? In any national conflict, Alabama 
has a powerful ally. In this view, it is too plain for argument that 
every State is interested in the prosperity of every other, and each 
in the prosperity and happiness of all. We are not rivals, we are 
brothers. And here, I may ask, without egotism, why is young 
Ohio so powerful ? Kentucky is older by many years ; whilst, with a 
climate and soil unsurpassed by few, perhaps none, in the Union ; 
with a people surpassed by no community for enterprise, for courage, 
for constancy, for all the qualities which give character and influence 
and just pride to States, Ohio certainly, from some cause, has very 
far exceeded her elder sister in developing wealth, population and all 
that constitutes a strong and powerful State. Why is this so? The 
cause, I think, will be found in facts which give Ohio no cause to 
boast of herself, but in that very institution which forms the topic 
of all this debate. Kentucky is my native State. I knew her well ; 
I knew her great men, and love them and honor them ; but Ohio and 
her, side by side, joined in heart as well as neighborhood — look at 
them and you will see the difference between them to which I refer. 
There is history, that may be studied with profit, touching this 
matter. 

My colleague [Mr. Cox] spoke of a meeting upon the western 
reserve in Ohio. He is a young gentleman, a rising man, and, if he 
does not get bad habits upon the Democratic side of the House, may 
come to something some day hence. [Laughter] He amused him- 
self with the comic power he possesses in imitating the nasal twang 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 399 

of the Yankees of that reserve. It sounded strange to you, as it did 
to him, and so it did to the army of Prince Rupert at Marston Moor, 
when the ancestors of these men rushed into battle against the 
mailed chivalry and curled darlings of the court of Charles I. What 
happened then ? Something worthy to be noted, and not forgotten. 
Stout Cromwell and his unconquerable Ironsides, when the day was 
well nigh lost, charged with resistless fury upon the proud columns 
of that host of gentlemen, as they were boastfully denominated, and 
lo ! Prince Rupert and his host were no longer there. They were 
scattered as the dried leaves of autumn are before the storm-blast of 
the coming winter. That same nasal twang rang out, on that day, 
their well-known war-cry, "the sword of the Lord and Gideon." 
These Yankees are a peculiar people ; they are an industrious, thriv- 
ing, pains-taking race of men. The frailties of these men grow out 
of their very virtues, those stern virtues which founded liberty in 
England, and baptized it in their own blood upon Bunker Hill, in 
America. They will do so again if there is a necessity for it. It is 
a hard matter to deal with men who do verily believe that God 
Almighty and His Angels encamp round about them. What do 
they care for earthly things or earthly power? What do they care 
for Kings, and Lords, and Presidents? They fully believe they are 
heirs of the King of Kings. In the hour of battle, they seem to 
themselves to stand, like the great Hebrew leader, in the cleft of the 
rock ; the glory of the most high God passes by them, and they 
catch a gleam of its brightness. If you come in conflict with the 
purposes of such men, they will regard duty as everything, life as 
nothing. So it appeared in our war of the Revolution. 

The gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Barksdale] says that the 
North got more Revolutionary pensions than the South. I do not 
know how that is. How did it happen ? Gentlemen tell me they 
would not have pensions in the South. I am glad if it be so. I 
happen to know professionally something of Revolutionary claims 
for lands. Virginia, when she ceded the Northwestern Territory to 
the United States, reserved all the lands lying between the Little 
Miami and Scioto rivers, to satisfy the claims of her troops in the 
Virginia line on continental establishment. A large district in Ken- 
tucky had been taken up to satisfy the same class of claims. All the 
reservation in Ohio has been absorbed, and still land warrants come, 
and scrip has been granted ; and yet the Virginia line on continental 
establishment is not yet satisfied. Sir, it has seemed to us that the 



400 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

army of Xerxes might have all claimed and been satisfied before this 
time. But this is all aside and apart from the proper subject before 
us. I am not now, never have been, and never will be, one to so far 
violate history and good taste as to draw invidious distinctions 
between this or that State or colony, who, by their combined valor, 
won the independence of all the States. While I must always ven- 
erate the men of New England of that day, I still turn with una- 
bated admiration to those of the South, especially to Virginia — glo- 
rious "Old Dominion," illustrious alike for her heroes in war and her 
sages in peace ; and if it depend on vote or effort of mine, the last 
land warrant of the last descendant of her Revolutionary heroes shall 
be located on lands, if such can be found, rich as the delta of the 
Nile ; in a climate, if it be possible, healthful as was Eden ere yet 
sin had brought death into the home of the first family of man. 

Mr. Clerk, it is my wish to show that the Republican party, 
which proposes to prohibit Slavery in the Taritories, is in that prin- 
ciple following the example of the men of the Revolutionary period, 
both before and after the adoption of the Constitution. The ordi- 
nance of 1787, prior to, or rather cotemporary with, the Constitution, 
shows that the men who, under the Confederation, enacted that ordi- 
nance, thought it most wise and beneficial toward slave and free 
States both, to prohibit Slavery in the Northwestern Territory. 
Now, if those men were wise men — if they were patriots — then 
what is the Republican party? It proposes to continue their policy; 
to imitate their example ; to follow in their footsteps ; and this is all 
on the subject of Slavery which we propose to do. Were the men 
of 1787 wrong, then indeed in this particular is the Republican party 
wrong. If they were right in the policy which dictated the ordinance 
of 1787, then is the Republican party right, and the Democratic 
party wrong — totally, entirely wrong. But you say this ordinance 
was not enacted under the Constitution, but prior to it; and that, 
under and by virtue of the Constitution, we have no power to pro- 
hibit Slavery in Territories by acts of Congress. Let us now see 
what the fathers said on that subject; and, particularly, let us 
observe what they did. I must insist on the point of examining 
into what the elder men of the Republic did, for this reason : those 
men made, pondered, studied, adopted, the Constitution. They had 
great veneration for it ; and all of them who acted under it, whether 
in legislative, executive, or judicial capacity, took a solemn oath to 
siippoft and not to ziolate it. If they were honest (and I think that 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 401 

we will scarcely dispute it) then, if they did violate the Constitution, 
they were ignorant men, and did not understand their own work as 
well as we sages here assembled. I think the characteristic modesty 
of this House will scarcely assert the latter proposition ! 

Passing by many facts in our political history which threw some 
light on the subject before, let us pause a moment at the year 1820. 
Not long before this time, we had passed through our second war 
with Great Britain. At that time, I began to look out upon the 
political affairs of the world with that interest which both novelty 
and importance would inspire in all young minds. I read the argu- 
ments in the Missouri case with a great deal of care. Although the 
sentiment of the country was generally against me, I then formed 
the opinion that Missouri had a rigid to come into the Union with 
Slavery. I thought that right was founded upon the treaty stipula- 
tions by which that Territory was acquired. The treaty, ratified as 
it was by the Senate, two-thirds of that body concurring, became, in 
the language of the Constitution, the "supreme law of the land." 
What was Louisiana when we acquired her? Anybody who knows 
the history of the times will know what she was. A little settle- 
ment, old, it is true, but so small in population that it would be 
made by the Yankees of this day in a very few months. What was 
the reason of that aquisition? All who have looked into the cur- 
rent history of the West, from 1790 up to about 1803, know that 
Western men, the ancestors of those who now boast so much of our 
loyalty to the Union, were threatening to break off from those now 
living east of the Alleghanies, and to make an independent confeder- 
ation west of it, and to force free trade to the sea through the mouth 
of the Mississippi. Jefferson was alarmed, and the whole country 
was alarmed, as you will see if you read the debates of 1802 and 
1803, in and out of Congress, while this matter was going on. 
Everybody West demanded that we should go into war with Spain, 
because she would not let us trade through the mouth of the Missis- 
sippi ; and most eloquent and impressive speeches were made, 
enforcing the idea that there was danger of a Western secession, 
unless trade was made easy to the Gulf of Mexico through the Mis- 
sissippi river. Mr. Jefferson, without any constitutional authority 
whatever, as he himself thought and openly avowed, authorized our 
Ministers in France to negotiate for the purchase of Louisiana, 
which had then but recently fallen into the hands of France. It 
was to avoid war that it was done. That was the motive. It seems 
27 



402 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

by the subsequent purchases of Florida, and more recently of Cali- 
fornia and New Mexico, that there was authority for acquisition all 
the while lurking in the treaty-making and war-making powers. 

I doubt very much, Mr. Clerk, whether the First Consul, that 
Little Corporal who was in command in France at that time, would 
have ever signed a treaty which abrogated any right that the people 
of the ceded territory then had. We know that when the treaty was 
completed, it has been always said, and I believe it, that Napoleon 
refused to put his signature to it, unless we agreed to admit the peo- 
ple of Louisiana into our confederacy of States, with all the rights 
enjoyed by those who were already in the Union. He was in arms 
for liberty then ; he proclaimed himself then " the armed soldier of 
freedom," and would not have given up that colony, as he called it, 
for all you could have offered him, but that he had no navy to pro- 
tect it. He was at war with England, and he knew that England 
with her navy would take his colonies from him. He was therefore 
glad to get rid of them. That Territory would have been a point of 
weakness to France then, just as Canada would be a point of weak- 
ness to England now, if she were in a war with us. That was Napo- 
leon's idea, and that article in the treaty which secured to Louisiana 
the right to enter into the Confedercy, was inserted at the request of 
Napoleon, and, no doubt, at that time, it showed his sincere admira- 
tion of our Government. He would not sign the treaty till that 
was put in, in such terms as (treaties being the supreme law of the 
land ) must prevail over any of our notions of Slavery. And Louis 
iana and Missouri would not have been admitted at that day without 
that clause in the treaty, although I think, without such treaty, they 
would in time have been admitted without it. I do not say that it 
was the policy or the wish of the founders of the Republic to dis- 
turb the relations of property that existed when they acquired any 
territory. They left Louisiana just as it was ; so they did with Flor- 
ida, in 1819. Slaves were property there when we acquired that 
territory, and they remained property; and Florida came into the 
Union with Slavery. Arkansas was admitted in the same way. 
But in that part of the country comprehended within the Louisiana 
purchase lying north of latitude 36° 30', covered by what is called 
the Missouri compromise line, there was no population — no white 
men, no slaves, no property to be affected ; and therefore Slavery 
could properly be prohibited there. That was the view which the 
men of 1820 took of that subject That has been called a compro- 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 403 

mise; and the legislation of 1850 has been called a compromise. 
Why I know not. I apprehend that none of the men of that day 
voted for a law which they believed compromised away or violated 
the Constitution of the United States. Certainly no Congress 
should be lightly charged with such horrible infidelity to themselves 
and their posterity. They never thought they were violating the 
Constitution, and compromising it, when they passed the Missouri 
restriction. They maintained their position of justice and fidelity to 
compacts. The Constitution had declared that that Constitution, and 
the treaties and laws made under it, should be the supreme law of 
the land, overruling all other laws. That omnipotent treaty-making 
power was not trusted to anything short of two-thirds of that great 
constitutional body, the Senate of the United States. It was safe to 
trust it to two-thirds of that body, representing all the sovereign 
States of the Union. 

I have attempted to explain, Mr. Clerk, that we acquired 
territory, that Slavery existed in it as an institution, and that 
there never was any exercise of the powers of the Government 
to destroy that local institution, or, it you please, that right. The 
whole of the Louisiana purchase, so far as Slavery was concerned, 
was left just as it was acquired until 1821, when Slavery was prohib- 
ited north of 36° 30'. Whether any slaves were held in the country 
to which the inhibition applied, is not material, at this day, to decide. 
My impression is, there were none. However, the men of 1820-21 
understood all about the early settlements in the "Louisiana pur- 
chase," and the character of those settlements also, much better than 
we can be supposed to understand them after a lapse of forty years. 
We know that the men of that day declared that the treaty by which 
we acquired that territory contained provisions by which we were 
bound, its obligations being paramount to all law and every other 
obligation. They admitted Missouri, as I think she would have 
been admitted if there had been no treaty; perhaps it might not 
have been within a year or two, but eventually I believe she would 
have been admitted without the aid of treaty stipulations. 

Now, sir, who were they, disputing at the time about this ques- 
tion of the benefits of Slavery, the disadvantages of Slavery, the 
evils of Slavery, looking at it in all its aspects, social, moral, politi- 
cal? They were the men of 1820; they were men who had just 
emerged from that struggle with Great Britain, second in importance, 
as they thought, only to that in which they conquered our independ- 



404 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

ence; they rejoiced that they had come out of it with reputation to 
the country. Their hearts were American. Whether Democrats, 
RepubHcans or Federahsts, they w^ere all Americans ; all party lines 
had been obliterated. We know that the period to w-hich I refer 
was called the halcyon period of the Republic. God knows it ivas a 
happy day in the public affairs, compared with the present. What 
did they do? Just what we should do to-morrow, if we w^ere like 
them. They admitted a slave State because they were bound to do 
it, either by treaty obligations or by those fraternal relations that 
must exist between the States ; and they said that Slavery should 
never exist in the territory north of Missouri. 

You of the South insist that the inhibition of Slavery in the 
territory north of the State of Missouri was unconstitutional. Is it to 
be supposed that the men of those days did not understand their con- 
stitutional obligations? There were Mr. Monroe, and John Quincy 
Adams, and William H. Crawford — my Georgia friends can under- 
stand who I mean when I speak of him — a man, in my memory, 
quite as illustrious as any citizen that has ever lived in that great 
State. He was Secretary of the Treasury in the Cabinet of Mr. 
Monroe. There was Mr. Smith Thompson, afterwards Judge of the 
Supreme Court — a man wdiom everybody who knew him will now 
remember as one possessing great learning in matters of constitu- 
tional law, as well as in the common and civil law ; a jurist, in the 
best sense of the word; an old-fashioned man, in the best sense of 
the word ; a man of large and well-furnished head, and sound, patri- 
otic heart. He was Secretary of the Navy. Mr. McLean was not 
at that time a member of the Cabinet. It remained for Gen. Jack- 
son to bring the Postmaster-General into the Cabinet, but he was in 
familiar association with that Cabinet. But who was he, I ask you, 
whose only function it was, at that time, to give constitutional law to 
the Cabinet? Who the Attorney-General, who has nothing else to 
do but that, or would have nothing else to do, if w'e had not 
imposed extra-official duties upon him? William Wirt was the man, 
a Virginian. I presume my honorable friend from Virginia, who sits 
before me now [Mr. Bocock], would have had some doubt about the 
propriety of his own opinion upon legal and constitutional points, if 
Mr. Wirt had differed from him. 

John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, was also a member of that 
Cabinet. This very question, the power of Congress to prohibit 
Slavery in the Territories, was submitted to that Cabinet. Was Mr. 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 405 

Monroe an Abolitionist? Doubtless, like others of his compeers of 
that period, he did entertain the opinion, that wherever the white 
man could labor with advantage, it would be better to prohibit Slavery ; 
but that was not the question submitted to him — him of the Revolu- 
tionary era; him, an honored and influential patriot, from the time of 
our independence up to the constitutional era ; him, a cotemporary of 
the Constitution itself, who knew all the motives and reasons, the 
pros and cons, why this power was put in, and that was left out, of 
that instrument — which, as was eloquently remarked the other day, is 
so delicate a piece of machinery, that, if it be deranged in a single 
spring, the whole falls into chaos. This man, a cotemporary of that 
period, who had studied that complex and delicate work, knew the 
object of the whole and the function of each of its parts — I ask, did 
he not understand the uses and design of that work as well, nay, 
much better, than we, his degenerate successors? That question, I 
repeat, was submitted to his Cabinet, not a single member of which, 
I believe, is now alive ; and the testimony of Mr. Adams is, that they 
were unanimously of the opinion that the bill prohibiting Slavery in 
the territory north of latitude 36° 30' was a constitutional law. 

Mr. Keitt, (in his seat) — Mr. Calhoun denied the statement. 

Mr. Corwin — I heard the gentleman from South Carolina make 
that statement the other day. I was in the Senate when that was 
mentioned. If my memory be correct, Mr, Calhoun said, at that 
time, he did not remember that fact. But be that as it may, if Mr. 
Calhoun at that time had entertained the opinion that it was not 
within the constitutional competency of Congress to pass that act, is 
it likely, from the earnest nature and character of the man, that he 
would not have left on record his protest against the approval of 
what he might have deemed an unconstitutional law ? 

Mr. Keitt — I will quote a single word from Mr. Monroe's testimony. 
It is not quite so strong as I thought it was, but it is just it should be quoted. 
It is: 

"That the proposed restriction of Territories which are to be admitted 
into the Union, if not in direct violation of the Constitution, is repugnant to 
its principles." 

Mr. Corwin — I have not brought myself to the conclusion that 
Mr. Monroe put his name to a bill that he believed unconstitutional. 

From the history of the times to which I now refer, we should 
all learn to tolerate difference of opinion. Mr. Jefferson thought a 



406 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

great public necessity obliged him to acquire Louisiana, without any 
warrant in the Constitution for that act. It is not necessary now to 
recur to the historical facts of that day which formed in the mind of 
Mr. Jefferson a justification of that act. Louisiana was thus 
acquired, and all then supposed our territory complete. But after 
the war of 1812 was ended, we found, or thought we found, another 
necessity. Florida was a Spanish colony. She was our neighbor, 
our too near neighbor. Our race, our rapacious race, will not sub- 
mit to a close proximity with any other race. Many apologies and 
some reasons were soon found why we should own Florida. Indians 
abounded there; slaves were property there. It was said, and I 
believe with truth, that these Indians would sometimes steal or spirit 
away the slaves of our adjoining States, or that slaves would run 
away into Florida, and fugitive slave bills, as we knew, could not be 
enforced there. Florida was purchased to adjust this difficulty. 
Slavery was lawful there, and the Government received it, kept it, 
and to this day does not pretend to disturb Slavery in Florida. It 
may be remembered that the legislative power of Congress over Ter- 
ritories came before the Supreme Court of the United States as a 
question directly or incidentally involved in a case which was brought 
from that Territory, I think in the year 1828. The whole court then 
agreed that Congress alone could legislate for Territories. It should 
be borne in mind that this was the same court, but not the same 
judges, which decided the famous case of Dred Scott. What did 
Mexico say when she ceded territory to us ? She ceded it to the 
United States ; not to South Carolina, or to Georgia, or Massachu- 
setts ; but to the United States. She said that the right to make 
laws for this people is now transferred to the United States. The 
local laws and regulations in all such cases remain in full force, except 
where they conflict with the Constitution of the United States. The 
deed of cession was made to the Government of the United States, and 
that Government, by consequence, has, by virtue of treaty, the 
power to control the territory. I have given you the opinion of 
Chief Justice Marshall. There are other decisions of the Supreme 
Court, which I may hereafter refer to, recognizing Congress as the 
only legislative power which can rightfully make laws for a Territory, 
until that Territory becomes a State. 

Now, let me look a little to our opinions — the opinions of 
learned gentlemen elected to represent the people. It was observed 
by the gentleman from Mississippi, that, in the "compromise" of 



» ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 407 

1850, as he will continue to call it, the power to make laws for the 
Territories was abandoned. Now, if any one will look into the laws 
of 1850, organizing the Territories of New Mexico and Utah, they 
will find that, while they organized a Legislative Council and a lower 
House of Representatives, in each of those organic laws they pro- 
vide, "that the laws made by the Territorial Legislature should be 
returned to Congress, and if disapproved by Congress, should be 
null and void." So far from surrendering this great principle, now 
become established by judicial decision as well as by the laws of 
Congress, Congress expressly retained the power to annul the laws 
of the Territory. Sir, I listened to the debates upon those measures 
of 1850 for many months. Mr. Webster was, I think, very unjustly 
condemned by a portion of the people of his own State, because, 
they said, he surrendered this great right. I have lived too long to 
be much amazed at anything; but I have been utterly astonished 
that it should have been asserted by any one that either of the illus- 
trious men who figured in that discussion — Clay or Webster — ever 
surrendered the power of Congress to prohibit Slavery in the Terri- 
tories of the United States. They declared, in their speeches, that 
they believed they had that power ; but that the territory coming 
from Mexico was free, and that no power on earth, except Congress, 
could take Slavery there, unless the law-making power of that terri- 
tory had planted it there before we acquired it. All the courts. 
State and Federal, up to 1854, had determined that Slavery is the 
creature of local law, or long local usage recognized as lawful, which 
was but another formula for the expression of that principle. 

[At this point, Mr. Corwin gave way for a motion to adjourn]. 

TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, i860. 

Mr. Clerk : I ought to apologize to the House and to myself 
for suffering myself to be beguiled into this debate without any 
preparation whatever. I ought not to have been drawn into this 
discussion without some preparation. When Sir Walter Scott was 
inquired of, why he did not write the Life of Napoleon in one vol- 
ume instead of three, he replied, that he had not the time. If I had 
known that I should have been brought to discuss the very questions 
that have been in my mind since I took the floor yesterday, or that I 
should have said anything to the House, except merely call its atten- 
tion to the necessity of electing a Speaker, I certainly would have 



408 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

said in one hour what required two hours to accompHsh yesterday. 
I wish now, before I proceed, having collected myself somewhat 
during the intervening time since the adjournment, to ask the gentle- 
man from Virginia [Mr. Garnett] whether I understood him yester- 
day to say that Mr. Jefferson, at some time in his life, had expressed 
the opinion that the Missouri restriction was unconstitutional, or only 
that it was inexpedient. 

Mr. Garnett — Both. 

Mr. Corwin — When I conceded that such was his opinion, I did 
not mean to say that Mr. Jefferson had said at any time that the law 
passed, restricting Slavery beyond a certain line of latitude, was 
unconstitutional. I did know that he had somewhere expressed the 
opinion that it was highly inexpedient. If such an opinion as that 
suggested by the gentleman from Virginia was ever expressed by 
Mr, Jefferson, I do not know it. That he declared the acquisition of 
the Territory of Louisiana to be without warrant of Constitution, is 
a matter of such public political history that none of us are ignorant 
of it. But I do not mean to concede the point that Mr. Jefferson 
had expressly declared the Missouri act unconstitutional. 

Now, Mr. Clerk, let us recall what I intended 'to present to the 
world — for we always speak to mankind when we speak in Congress, 
and to all posterity, and to all time back of us, if it can be made to 
hear. I have endeavored to apologize to my friends upon the other 
side of the House for the very erroneous opinions, as they call them, 
of the so-called Republican party. I only want to say to them now, 
that we must be excused if we take the same ground with the 
fathers of the Revolution and the fathers of the Constitution ; and that 
whatever may be the opinions of the men on that side of the House, 
we cannot find it in our consciences to accuse ourselves of treason 
while we advocate the doctrines of Washington, of Jefferson, of 
Madison, and of Monroe. We may be wrong upon the point of 
law ; we may be wrong about the power of Congress ; but about the 
policy of restricting Slavery, we being wrong, those great men were 
wrong. If they were right, beyond peradventure the Democratic 
party are wrong. That was the view which I wished to present to 
my fellow-citizens assembled here — to my fellow-members — by way 
of excusing us from listening hereafter to charges of treason, mur- 
der, robbery and arson, which have been charged upon the whole 
Republican party. Why, the arguments of some of these gentle- 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. ■ 409 

men on the other side would indicate that, in their opinion, as a matter 
of criminal law, every one of the Republicans could be convicted of 
being at Harper's Ferry, with a pike in his hand, pushing it into the 
bosom of a Southern gentleman. [Laughter]. Sir, it made me feel 
a little unhappy at first, until I found that all this was said in joke ; 
yet the world, which is listening to this debate, do not understand 
this. Gentlemen tell us here that they mean nothing personal by 
these remarks. "It is true," say these gentlemen, "that you do 
commit treason, you do commit arson, murder, and all these crimes, 
but you do it in the most honorable and honest way." [Laughter]. 
That is satisfactory to me. 

Sir, I endeavored to show yesterday, by reference to the general 
history of the country, that Mr. Seward had said nothing, that 
Helper had said nothing, more offensive than Washington. I do not 
know what is in Helper's book, except by report. I was written to 
by one of my constituents for a copy of that new book, about which 
he had heard so much. I had been listening to this argument about 
treason, and I said to my constituent that I had no copy, except 
one, and that it would be dangerous for it to go through the post 
office with my frank. I should be afraid that it would be brought 
up as testimony against me, under an indictment by some court in 
Virginia, for being an accessory after the fact, by sending Helper's book 
under my frank to Greene county, Ohio. And that is not all. 
There would be the evidence that I nominated my colleague [Mr. 
Sherman] and voted for him. I hope gentlemen will see the deli- 
cacy of my situation. I have much feeling on this subject. I have 
a wife and children, and they do not want me hung for voting for 
my worthy colleague. [Laughter.] It would not be agreeable to 
them. [Renewed laughter.] 

I think it was shown yesterday, by the references which I made, 
that nothing had been said by Mr. Seward which could be construed 
as offensive to the South as these declarations of Jefferson, which are 
known by heart throughout the length and breadth of the entire 
Union. Now, I wish to address to gentlemen on the other side 
of the House one or two suggestions upon a question of logic and 
fair reason. They say that Mr. Seward, being the head and leader 
of the Republican party — against my protestations, they constantly 
deny me that honor [laughter] — -had proclaimed at Rochester, in 
general terms, that between forced labor and free labor there neces- 
sarily would be some collision ; that some conflict would go on between 



410 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

them ; and that, in consequence of that doctrine, John Brown deter- 
mined to murder somebody at Harper's Ferry. Now, do they sup- 
pose that John Brown had not read Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia," 
and all other things which Jefferson had written about Slavery? Do 
they suppose he' had not seen the declaration of Washington, 
that if there were any way by which Slavery could be abolished, he 
would render to it his cordial co-operation ? Do you suppose he had 
not seen that? Do you suppose he had not seen the debates in the 
Convention, in which Slavery is denounced as an enormous evil lead- 
ing step by step, as certainly and as steadily as the step of time, to 
a consummation as fatal as death ? Do you suppose John Brown 
had not read all these things in his solitude among the mountains of 
New York, where, twenty years ago, he says, he first conceived the 
idea of invading one of the Southern States and carrying oft its 
slaves? Do you suppose he had not pondered upon these things, 
and prayed over them — for he was a praying man, as all enthu- 
siasts are? He was a brave man, as all stern enthusiasts are; and it 
was because he thought this enterprise, the offspring of his gloomy 
imagination, was consecrated by the approbation of Jefferson and 
Washington, that, as he sometimes said, he believed the arms of the 
Almighty upheld him, he was encompassed about by the Angels of 
the Lord. 

Is all this to be attributed to a declaration of Mr. Seward, in 
reference to a conflict between slave and free labor? I appeal to 
gentlemen, if they could trace back Brown's conduct at Harper's 
Ferry to any source out of his own solitary meditations, whatever 
others might have stated ot their opinions, whether it is not more 
rational to trace the germ of that conduct to those writings, speeches 
and letters of your own great men of the South ? They were great 
men ; they were heroes. They were the great men of the United 
States, and the great men of the world ; and, notwithstanding you 
have changed your opinion on the subject of Slavery, and made it 
contrary to theirs, yet their names and their fame, and their opin- 
ions, will be engraved upon the pages of history when those of us 
of this date shall be buried in profound oblivion. [Applause upon 
the floor and in the galleries.] It is wonderful that the talent, inge- 
nuity, and eloquence of this discussion should have come to such 
conclusions. Shall our minds be fastened upon these flimsy pre- 
tences, when we know there was matter enough in the writings and 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 411 

speeches of the foremost men of the world to stimulate a mind like 
John Brown's into frantic fanaticism? 

But it is said we are accessories after the fact. I ask gentlemen 
if they have not attached too much importance to the Helper book ? 
When Thomas Paine was indicted in England, Attorney General 
McDonald, I believe, well known in forensic history, gave him some 
notice of the fact that he was to be tried for libel upon the British 
Government in the publication of his pamphlet, "The Rights of 
Man." A friend of Paine advised him to go over immediately and 
make some compromise with the Government. "No," said he, 
"that indictment is an advertisement, and one hundred thousand cop- 
ies of that pamphlet will be circulated in three weeks." And so it 
happened. Those one hundred thousand copies would not have 
seen the light, if it had not been for the indiscreet conduct of the 
then Attorney General of the British Cabinet. So such matters 
work out ; and so it must ever be in a country where principles are 
free, and speech and press are free. While on this subject, let me 
say what, I think, will be agreed to by every considerate man in the 
House and out of it. Suppose all of the two hundred and thirty- 
seven gentlemen here had met upon some concern of great interest 
to us personally. Suppose that some man was proposed to dis- 
charge a certain duty for us, and it was known that this gentleman 
had said or done something which might possibly be an objection to 
him for the discharge of the duty to be assigned to him. Any man 
who was a friend of his would have taken him aside (as the gentle- 
man from Missouri might have done), and said: "Now Mr. Sher- 
man, you have been nominated by a highly-respectable gentleman 
from Ohio." [Laughter.] That is what I would have said. Then 
he would have gone on: "I should have no doubts about voting 
for you ; but I understand you have recommended a book which 
teaches insurrection and rebellion in the slave States. How did you 
come to do it?" Mr. Sherman would have taken that gentleman by 
the hand and said: "Sir, a gentleman on this floor from New York 
came to me, while I was hastily doing some business at my desk, 
and told me it was desirable to collate certain parts of a book called 
'Helper's Impending Crisis,' and to publish them in a cheap pamph- 
let, which pamphlet was to have a political effect" — that is, to illus- 
trate, I suppose, the doctrines of the Republican party. I suppose 
that is what they all understood. "I asked him," Mr. Sherman 
would say, "is it all proper, all right? Said my friend, 'certainly., 



412 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

Then, without looking at the book, and knowing nothing about it, I 
authorized him to put my name to a recommendation of a book yet 
to be written. When I saw the v/ork I did not endorse it. I am 
sorry that I was thoughtlessly and unwittingly brought into this rec- 
ommendation of it. I never intended to endorse such a book. The 
gentleman from New York told me it was all right." 

Sir, I do think, under that explanation, the gentleman from 
Missouri would have taken his seat, and said, "After all stated in 
the New York Herald, there is nothing against Mr. Sherman, except 
that he acted unadvisedly, for which he is now sorry." He would not, 
if he had been his political friend, have risen and menaced him with 
a criminal prosecution. Criminal conduct is always to be found in 
the intention of men. I subscribe to a newspaper, to be printed for 
six months or a year; I put my name to the subscription and recom- 
mend it. It turns out that the editor is a rascal and a blackguard. 
Am I to be held responsible for what is published in that paper? I 
think the m'gnmcntimi ad Jiomincm might put some gentlemen on the 
other side in a very odd position. The gentlemen from Ohio recom- 
mended the publication of a book — not a book which had been 
printed, but a book to be made out of another, which he never saw 
in his life until this resolution of the gentleman from Missouri was 
offered. Well, gentlemen say there is nothing to stain Mr. Sher- 
man's honor; and yet, honored as he is, and unstained as he is in 
that particular repect, if he should be elected as Speaker of this 
House, it would be a burning shame ; the Union might be dissolved, 
and civil war take place. 

Mr. McClernand — Who said that? 

Mr. Clark, of Missouri — I ask the gentleman this question : Do you 
assert that I even said so ? 

Mr. Corwin — I was arguing upon the general tenor of the 
speeches on the other side of the House. 

Mr. Clark, of Missouri — I understood the gentleman to say that I so 
asserted. 

Mr. Corwin — No, sir, not at all. I do not think anybody 
stated that, in terms. 

Mr. Clark, of Missouri — Has anybody upon this floor said so? 

Mr. Corwin — No, sir. I said you argued that civil war must 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 413 

come thus: the election of Mr. Sherman — that was the first step; 
the next will be the election of Mr. Seward ; and then, war. 

Mr. Clark, of Missouri — The gentleman never heard me assert that. 

Mr. Corwin — No, sir; it was said by other gentlemen on that 
side. You may not have heard it. 

Mr. Keitt (in his seat) — Plenty of them, often and again. 

Mr. Corwin — I do not certainly misrepresent gentlemen in what 
I have said. Now, what is to follow? We, the Republican party, 
if we can, shall certainly elect these men, or somebody just like 
them. I wish to know what the casus belli is to be, before we set 
out; but all you can say, all the world can say, will never prevent 
any freeman in any free State — or slave State, I hope, either — from 
exercising the right of suffrage just when and as he pleases. No 
menace from any man, or a number of men living at my own door 
in Ohio, I trust, will ever avail to induce me to surrender that great 
inalienable right, or shrink with a craven timidity from its free exercise. 
I can assure those who threaten disunion, because the North or the 
West shall chance to vote for whom they deem proper for President, 
that no more fatal mistake ever entered into the head of a maniac, 
than the supposition that threats from any or all other quarters of 
the United States will prevent or deter a freemen in the North or 
West from voting according to the dictate of his own unbiased sense 
of duty to himself and his country. 

Mr. Clerk, yesterday I intended to bring before the House the 
constitutional doctrines held by the Republican party, and, compare 
them with the doctrines held by the founders of the Republic, and 
thus endeavor to prove, that when we delare that Congress, under 
our Constitution, has the power to prohibit Slavery in the Territories 
of the United States, before they become States, we propose noth- 
ing which is new, either in the principles or policy of those who 
founded this Government; and that the practice and policy of this 
Government, up to the year 1854, is in accordance with the doctrines 
now held by the Republican party of this day. I am sure that the 
history of the Government, in all its departments — legislative, judi- 
cial and executive — will sustain me in this position. If so, then I 
shall feel authorized to inquire of gentlemen on the other side, by 
what authority you dare to denounce us as holding principles fatal to 
the peace or interests or liberties of the people ? Your apology will 
be, public opinion is changed; the world has changed its opinions 



414 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

touching Slavery. I admit that pubHc opinion may have changed in 
the South, and public opinion in the North may have been modified 
somewhat. The public opinion of the world, however, against Slav- 
ery is stronger now than it was sixty years ago. I know from the 
declaration of Mr. Calhoun, himself, that his mind did undergo a 
change in respect to some constitutional points, and in respect to the 
propriety and morality of the institution of Slavery. But do not 
gentlemen know that ever since the time when Jefferson said, when 
he contemplated Slavery in this country, he "trembled when he 
remembered that God is just;" that ever since the time when he 
declared that ' ' nothing was more certainly written in the book of 
fate, than that the black man one day would be free ;" that from that 
very time, and even before that time, the whole moral sense of the 
highest minds of England had been running in the very direction of 
abolitionism ? We know, now, that the slave trade never was legal- 
ized by any people upon the face of the earth. We learn it from 
the great debates in the British House of Commons, when the slave 
trade was prohibited under the auspices of Wilberforce, Granville 
Sharp, of Pitt and Fox ; we know that the license given by Elizabeth 
to Hawkins expressly forbade him from bringing a negro from Africa 
"by force. " We know that the statute of George 11, , which was said 
to legalize that traffic, forbid that any African should be brought away 
from Africa except by his own consent. England is not so much to 
blame as we may suppose for initiating the slave trade, though it is 
true that she and all Europe acquiesced in it. 

Mr. Clerk, we know very well that, in the midst of that univer- 
sal excitement of the public mind which prevailed during the reign 
of Elizabeth and subsequent reigns, touching the Protestant and 
Catholic religions, and the establishment of Protestantism, when all 
the Powers of Europe were engaged in fighting for the success of 
the Protestant or Catholic Princes ; we know that this affair of the 
slave trade was a subordinate matter, and passed unnoticed. Had 
England been in the calm which she enjoyed afterwards in the time 
of James, I very much doubt whether there ever would have been a 
negro slave brought from the coast of Africa by force. But it has 
gone, and England, during the last half of the last century, could 
not boast of any very great mind in her Parliament who was not 
opposed to the -slave trade. And, as the gentleman from Mississippi 
well said yesterday, after having abolished the slave trade, the very 
next step was the abolition of Slavery in Jamaica ; and I will add, 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. • 415 

with their views of the subject, they were right. Our crime is, that 
our notions about Slavery, its morality and its evils, are such as these 
men held. I do not now speak of our right, under the Constitution, to 
touch it anywhere ; that I shall come to by and by. Suppose we do 
hold opinions touching the evils of Slavery in common with the 
greatest minds that have ever illustrated the history of England — the 
greatest empire, in my judgment, upon earth — in common with the 
great minds that founded this Republic. Is it fair, because we have 
not changed, but still adhere to those old opinions, to charge us with 
being reptiles, traitors and serpents ? If it is, then dig up from their 
last resting-place the bones of Jefferson, and hang them up, as royal 
hatred in England did Cromwell's for many a year. Go to the sacred 
sarcophagus, now in the hands of the women of this country, and 
get the bones of Washington to-day, spit upon them, and throw 
them into the Potomac. He held the opinion that Slavery ought to 
be abolished when it could be done with safety to both master and 
slave. No Northern man goes further than that. Gentlemen will 
find that these things will lead us into singular conclusions after a 
while. I have shown that those opinions were the opinions which 
illustrate the history of the world, and that they were openly pro- 
claimed by Southern men, too, of whose greatness we all so justly 
boast. 

I endeavored to show yesterday — of which I shall have more to 
say presently — that Mr. Monroe's administration had sanctioned the 
very law which the Republican party say shall be passed with refer- 
ence to the Territories ; and that is all they do say. I grant you they 
stand upon that; that is the only thing which they have ever 
announced to the world intelligently, and as a matter of law, and 
doctrine, and practice. It was the departure from that principle 
which gave birth to the Republican party. I know that in the plat- 
form read here the other day by some gentleman on the other side, 
there was something said about the inalienable rights of man, and 
there was a long quotation read from the Declaration of Independ- 
ence. Now, if it has become a crime to quote the Declaration of 
Independence, pass a law making it so, and we will obey it. I rec- 
ollect that the celebrated John Randolph once told a young friend of 
mine, who was traveling with him abroad, that he (this young gen 
tleman) would live to see the day when men would be called to 
order for quoting the Constitution in Congress. 

It seems now, Mr. Clerk, that a gentleman or a party is entirely 



41 G SrKKOTIICfl OK TII<)>fAH COIIWIN. 

out of ])1,K<" wlu-n lie or it quotes the Declaration of Tiulepcndcnce 
with ,q)[)r()l)ati()n. Hut T do not construe it as niad enthusiasts do, 
at all; nor does the Rei)iibnc:an piirty construe it as they do, as para- 
mount to the Constitution. That Declaration says that every man is 
IxMii with certain inlierent, inalienable rights; these are life, liberty 
and the pursuit of happiness. I suppose that the Almighty intended 
man to live, oi" lie would not have breathed the breath of life into 
him. Iwi-ry man has tlu- liidil to live, but he certainly may forfeit 
that ri{;ht whenever he violates the law. 1 suppose everybody knows, 
that. 1 have seen it tried. Man has a rij;ht to liberty; but, in my 
State of Ohio, if a man breaks a pane of glass, and takes away a 
piece of goods from a tiadesman's store, all that inalienable right, as 
it is called, cannot save him, and he is sent to serve ten years in the 
penitentiary, where he never gets the floor, not even for a personal 
explanation. [Laughter]. Man has a rijdit to the pursuit of hap]ii- 
ness, tmdoubtedly ; but if Hrigham Young came into the State of 
Ohio in the pursuit of ha[)piness, in his way, [ laughter] we would 
lead him off to the penitentiary immediately. All these things are 
understood by men who analjVA- tluni. T know that they are too 
much abusetl by men who take occasion to use these general 
expressions — all of which are true in the sense in which these great 
nun use them. They are truly much abusid ; but 1 hope that the 
Kipublican party will not be blamed for it, n)r they have as many 
men in their ranks who understand them properly as you have. 
We have .schools and ci)lleges in the We.st; but still we believe 
that there are men on tin- lastern slopes of the Atlantic, who, com- 
])aratively ignorant though they be, do still C(Miiprehend these truths. 
'Ihey have a Hunker Hill tlu re which reminds them of certain things. 
Tiiey had a James Otis there, and to him will history certainly award 
the merit of having inauguiatetl the doctiines of the Revolution- 
ary war. 

Sir, I said )-esterday that I could not suppose that anybody 
believed that the Republican party differed with the old men of the 
Confederation, who passed the ordinance of 1787, at the ver)' time 
they were making the C(Mistitution. I do not think any man on the 
other side, or any side, or anywhere in the world, can sa}' to nu- that 
I differ with the founders of the Repvd)lic, that I differ with the men 
who made the Con.stilution, on this subject. Why so? I say that 
I agree with them. My principle is to exclude forced labor — negro 
labor — from ever)- Territory where white men can work well and be 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 417 

healthy. That is my idea. But I do not know but that I shall be 
turned out of the Republican party by my friend from Illinois [ Mr. 
Lovejoy] for heresy. That is my doctrine, and I say that the 
founders of the Constitution and of the Republic had that very idea, 
and put it into practice by excluding Slavery, in 1787, from the 
entire Northwestern Territory, now five powerful States. I now 
pass to the question of the power of the Congress of the United 
States. If the men of 1787 were right in their policy, then I think 
that every gentleman will say that we are equally right in entertain- 
ing similar views, If the men of former times had the truth with 
them in saying that it was better, not alone for the present States, 
not for the East, nor for the West, not for the North, nor for the 
South, alone, but for all of them ; better for the whole Republic, that 
the white children of the father should go to a place where they 
could work well and be healthy ; better for these and better for all 
that the children of the white man should have all that unoccupied 
land, if not too hot for them — if they believed that they were right 
in that, then I say we will find power in the Constitution, if we by 
fair construction can, to do that right thing. I think that I have 
established the point, at least, that the Republican party proposes to 
do exactly that which the makers of the Constitution did, a year 
before the Constitution was made. They got the power to do it 
under the old Confederation ; they had that power, not merely by the 
consent of the South, but at the urgent request of the South. Now, 
have we the power under the Constitution to do it ? 

The gentleman from Mississippi [ Mr. Lamar ] suggested to me 
yesterday that the law organizing the Territory of Orleans recognized 
Slavery there. So it did. I wish, now, that section of the law en- 
acted in 1798, for the Government of the Territory of Mississippi, 
be read. 

The Clerk read as follows : 

" Sec. 7. And be it further enacted, That from and after the establish- 
ment of the aforesaid Government, it shall not be lawful for any person or 
persons to import or bring into the said Mississippi Territory, from any port 
or place without the limits of the United States, or to cause or procure to be 
so imported or brought, or knowingly to aid or assist in so importing or bring- 
ing, any slave or slaves; and that every person so offending, and being thereof 
convicted before any court within .said Territory, having competent jurisdic- 
tion, shall forfeit and pay, for each and every slave so imported or brought, 
the sum of 8300 ; one moiety for the use of the United States, and the other 
28 



418 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

moiety for the use of any person or persons who shall sue for the same ; and 
that every slave so imported or brought shall thereupon become entitled to, 
and receive, his or her freedom." 

I have read that section of the law. Now, Mr. Clerk, to show 
that at that time, in 1798, the Congress of the United States assumed 
and exercised a power in a Territory which they were forbidden by 
the Constitution to exercise towards a State, is proof conclusive that 
they at that time understood that they had the power to make laws 
concerning Slavery and the slave trade in the Territories. 

There are some other matters, sir, which I have been looking at 
this morning, which I wish also to read. About the year 1808, a 
gentleman whom some of us remember well, being then a Delegate 
from the Territory of Mississippi, (Mr. Poindexter) moved to change 
the organic law of that Territory, so that the Governor should not 
have the power of proroguing the Legislature at his pleasure. Then, 
as is usual in deliberative bodies, a discussion sprung up upon general 
questions involved. On that occasion a gentlemen from Georgia, 
whom I had also the pleasure to know for some time — a Mr. Troup 
— made the following remarks : 

" By the articles of cession, the right of soil and jurisdiction was ceded 
to the people of the United States on the express condition that the articles of 
the ordinance should form the government of the Mississippi Territory, and 
that they should not be governed otherwise. The inference inevitably is, that 
the State of Georgia would not have ceded but upon the express condition ; and 
this inference is the more inevitable, inasmuch as in this clause Georgia has 
made an express exception to a particular article in the ordinance; from 
which I say that Georgia intended that no other alteration should be made. 

" What was the policy of the ordinance, and what the object of its fram- 
ers ? Why, assuredly, to render the Government of the Territories depend- 
ent upon the Gov^ernment of the United States. And how was it to be 
effected ? By making the Territorial Legislature in a great degree dependent 
on the Governor, and him absolutely dependent on the Federal Executive. 
The moment we make the Legislature of a Territory independent of its Exec- 
utive, we make it independent of the Federal Government. * * 

" But the gentleman from Mississippi Territory is certainly mistaken as 
to one point. He seems to consider the Constitution of the United States as 
giving to the people of the Territories the same rights as the people of the 
States. It is a mistaken idea, neither warranted by the letter or the spirit of 
the Constitution ; for although the Constitution has declared that the people 
of one State are entitled to all the rights and privileges of another, yet it has not 
declared that the people of the Territories have the same rights as the people 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 419 

of the States. In another part of the Constitution, it is indeed expressly 
declared that Congress shall make all laws for the disposal of the Territories; 
but there is a salvo that all acts done and contracts made previous to the 
adoption of the Constitution shall be as binding as if done afterward. The 
articles of the ordinance were enacted previously, and are consequently bind- 
ing under the Constitution. ' It cannot be controverted that they were wisely 
adopted, and have been salutary in their operation. They were framed by 
the Congress of 1787, composed of men whose integrity was incorruptible 
and judgment almost infallible. These articles, from that time to this, have 
remained unaltered, and carried the Territories, through difficulties almost 
insuperable, to prosperity. And now, for the first or second time, an altera- 
tion is proposed, the consequence of which cannot be foreseen, without any 
evidence that it is either necessary or expedient. 

" The population of every new country must necessarily be composed of 
a heterogeneous mixture of various tempers, characters and interests. In a 
population thus composed, it would be highly ridiculous to expect that love 
of order and obedience to law would always predominate. Therefore the old 
Congress wisely reserved to itself the right to control them ; to give the Gov- 
ernor power, when a Legislature became disorderly, to dissolve them ; and 
for the exercise of this power he is accountable to the General Government. 

" The gentleman from Mississippi wishes us not to treat the Territories 
as children, whose wild extravagances may require correcting by the indul- 
gent hand of their parents, but as the equals of the States, without any other 
reason than that which he states to be the situation of the people of his Terri- 
tory. They will next wish us to admit them into the Union before their pop- 
ulation will authorize it ; tell us that that Territory does not grow fast enough, 
and we must demolish the system for their convenience." 

Mr. Clerk, it will be observed that, in all the early discussions 
about the power of Congress in relation to a Territory, it has been 
admitted that Congress had entire control over its legislation under 
the Constitution of the United States. I would, if I thought it pru- 
dent, commend to my Illinois friends and to others, who contend for 
this very plausible and captivating doctrine of popular sovereignty 
in the Territories, to examine what it was the great founders of the 
Republic thought on that subject. I would advise them, as the hon- 
est clergymen of Illinois, who are about to be silenced by some law 
which we hear of, would do: to give it their prayerful attention. 
[Laughter.] 

I now send to the Clerk's desk, to be read, the tenth section of 
a law passed in 1804, to be enforced in the Territory of Orleans, 
which was thereby established. 

The Clerk read as follows : 



420 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

"Sec. 10. It shall not be lawful for any person or persons to import 
or bring into the said Territory, from any port or place without the limits of 
the United States, or cause or procure to be so imported or brought, or 
knowingly to aid or assist in importing or bringing, any slave or slaves ; and 
every person so offending, and being thereof convicted before any court 
within said Territory having competent jurisdiction, shall forfeit and pay, for 
each and every slave so imported or brought, the sum of $300, one moiety 
for the use of the United States, and the other moiety for the use of the per- 
son or persons who shall sue for the same ; and every slave so imported or 
brought shall thereupon become entitled to and receive his or her freedom. 
It shall not be lawful for any person or persons to import or bring into the 
said Territory, from any port or place within the limits of the United States, 
or tc cause or procure to be so imported or brought, or knowingly to aid or 
assist in so importing or bringing, any slave or slaves which shall have been 
imported since the first day of May, 1798, into any port or place within the 
limits of the United States, or which may hereafter be so imported from any 
port or place without the limits of the United States ; and every person so 
offending, and being thereof convicted before any court within said Territory 
having competent jurisdiction, shall forfeit and pay for each and every slave 
so imported or brought from without the United States the sum of $300, one 
moiety for the use of the United States, and the other moiety for the use of 
the person or persons who shall sue for the same ; and no slave or slaves 
shall, directly or indirectly, be introduced into said Territory, except by a 
citizen of the United States removing into said Territory for actual settlement, 
and being, at the time of such removal, bona fide owner of such slave or 
slaves ; and every slave imported or brought into the said Territory contrary 
to the provisions of this act shall thereupon be entitled to and receive his or 
her freedom." 

Mr. Clerk, I do not have these extracts read from the early leg- 
islation of the Congress of the United States, regarding this matter, 
with any view now to enter into an argument showing that they were 
constitutional. I only produce them as the opinions of the men of 
that day, who heretofore have been considered safe counsellors 
on questions of constitution law. What they did certainly evinces 
their belief that they had power to regulate the question of Slavery 
in Territories. I wish now to commend to the consideration of 
the House, on this point, the opinions of another gentleman (Mr. 
Louis McLane) long known and deservedly honored in the legislative 
and executive annals of the country ; always considered as exalting 
in his person the executive offices he occupied ; a foreign minister of 
the very highest reputation since the old men of the Revolutionary 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 421 

time have passed away. His son is now one of the diplomatic 
agents of the country. Mr. Louis McLane said what I send to the 
Clerk. 

The Clerk read as follows : 

" Mr. Chairman, the people of Missouri cannot be incorporated into the 
Union but as the people of a ' State,' exercising State government. It is a 
union of States, not of people, much less of Territories. A Territorial Gov- 
ernment can form no integral part of a union of State Governments ; neither 
can the people of a Territory enjoy any Federal rights until they have formed 
a State Government and obtained admission into the Union. The most 
important of the Federal advantages and immunities consist in the right of 
being represented in Congress — as well in the Senate as in this House — the 
right of participating in the councils by which they are governed. These are 
emphatically the * rights, advantages and immunities of citizens of the United 
States.' The inhabitant of a Territory merely has no such rights. He is not 
a citizen of the United States. He is in a state of disability as it respects his 
political or civil rights. Can it be called a ' right' to acquire and hold prop- 
erty, and h9,ve no voice by which its disposition is to be regulated ? Can it 
be called an advantage or immunity of a citizen of the United States to be 
subjected to a Government in whose deliberations he has no share or agency 
beyond the mere arbitrary pleasure of the Governor — to be ruled by a power 
irresponsible (to him, at least ) for its conduct ? Sir, the rights, advantages 
and immunities of citizens of the United States, and which are their proudest 
boast, are the rights of self-government — first, in their State Constitutions, 
and secondly, in the Government of the Union, in which they have an equal 
participation." ^^^>i:'^ii:^^^^ 

" The right to govern a Territory is clearly incident to the right of 
acquiring it. It would be absurd to say that any Government might purchase 
a Territory with a population, and not have the power to give them laws ; 
but, from whatever source the power is derivable, I admit it to be plenary, so 
long as it remains in a condition of Territorial dependence, but no longer. I 
am willing at any time to exercise this power. I regret that it has not been 
done sooner. But, though Congress can give laws to a Territory, it cannot 
prescribe them to a State. The condition of a people of a Territory is to be 
governed by others; of a State, to govern themselves." — Annals of Sixteenth 
Congress, First Session, vol. 1, pages 1145, 1146, 1160. 

The general drift of all these observations of the early men of 
the country concedes the fact that when a Territory is acquired, it is, 
before it becomes a State, to be governed by the Congress of the 
United States, whether you derive that power from the clause of the 
Constitution which says Congress shall have power to make all need- 
ful rules and regulations respecting the territory and other property 



422 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

of the United States, or derive it as an incident to the power to 
make war as some contend, or as incident to the power to make 
treaties without quaUfication, as others contend. You see that 
the power to make laws for a Territory was always considered, under 
one or the other of these clauses, as belonging to Congress. As 
that power is without limitation — as there is no possible limitation 
placed on it by these views of the subject — I maintain that it is just 
as large a legislative power as the States have in regulating their 
State policy. I hold, and I may differ from some of my Republican 
friends, that Congress can enact that Slavery shall be in a Territory, 
or enact that it shall not be in a Territory, just as fully and freely as 
a State can do the same within its limits. 

Let us now recur for a few moments to the legislation of Con- 
gress in that portion of the Louisiana purchase lying north of lati- 
tude 36° 30' — that part of the purchase now known as Kansas and 
Nebraska. I was endeavoring to show that the Cabinet of Mr. Mon- 
roe had all, upon mature reflection, in 1821, conceded the power of 
Congress to prohibit Slavery in a Territory, as they did in that Mis- 
souri restriction. When I quoted the opinions of Mr. Calhoun, it 
was suggested by the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Keitt] 
that Mr. Calhoun did not approve of it at the time. I have in my 
hand an extract from a speech of Mr. Calhoun, delivered in the Sen- 
ate in 1838, when that question came directly before that body. I 
had, I thought, a very perfect recollection of it; but I did not like to 
state it positively yesterday. It was made in a debate upon a reso- 
lution which he himself had offered, in which he said that any 
attempt by Congress to abolish Slavery in the District of Columbia, 
upon the ground that it was sinful, would be a dangerous invasion of 
the rights of the South. He went further, and said that Congress 
had no right to determine whether the institutions of a State were 
wicked or righteous. I am very much of that opinion myself I 
think every State has sins enough to answer for itself, without inter- 
fering with its neighbors. When that subject was under discussion, 
Mr. Calhoun said : 

" He was glad that the portion of the amendment which referred to the 
Missouri compromise had been struck out. He was not a member of Con- 
gress when that compromise was made, but it is due to candor to state that 
his impressions were in its favor ; but it is equally due to it to say that, with 
his present experience and knowledge of the spirit which then, for the first 
time, began to disclose itself, he had entirely changed his opinion." 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 423 

This is from Mr. Calhoun's own speech, made in 1838. I read 
from Benton's Thirty Years in the United States Senate, page 136*. 
It was made in a very animated discussion, which was conducted 
with perfect propriety and gentlemanly deportment, but with zeal 
and fervor and great power, too — all of which contributes to the use- 
fulness of every discussion ; and which I could wish, in common with 
us all, might be more sedulously imitated by us all upon this floor, 
in this present House of Representatives. 

Now, I could read further, if cumulative testimony were want- 
ing to show that Mr. Calhoun was in favor of that law. I think I 
have shown that the whole Cabinet did agree to it ; and I only now 
wish to show that they agreed to it deliberately and in writing. Mr. 
Benton, on page 141 of the same work, has collected, among other 
proofs, the following: 

** First, a fac simile copy of an original paper in Mr. Monroe's handwrit- 
ing, found among his manuscript papers, dated March 4, 1820, (two days 
before the approval of the Missouri compromise act), and endorsed : ' Inter- 
rogatories — Missouri — to the Heads of Departments and the Attorney-Gen- 
eral,' and containing within two questions : 

"1. Has Congress a right, under the powers vested in it by the Con- 
stitution, to make a regulation prohibiting Slavery in a Territory ? 

"2, Is the eighth section of the act which passed both Houses of Con- 
gress on the 3rd instant, for the admission of Missouri into the Union, consis- 
tent with the Constitution ?" 

This is a letter in the handwriting of Mr. Monroe, and the 
endorsement, as I have said, is in his handwriting ; and it was made 
two days before the act making this restriction was approved by him 
as President. The second piece of testimony collected here is: 

" The draft of an original letter m Mr. Monroe's handwriting, but with- 
out signature, date or address, but believed to have been a copy of a letter 
addressed to General Jackson, in which he says : 

" ' The question which lately agitated Congress and the public has been 
settled, as you have seen, by the passage of an act for the admission of Mis- 
souri as a State, unrestricted ; and Arkansas also, when it reaches maturity ; 

* Mr. Lamar, of Mississippi, between whom and Mr. Corwin there was a colloquy 
as to the correctness of Mr. Benton's citation, seemed to doubt that Mr. Calhoun had 
ever made such an admission. The extract here given will be found in Mr. Calhoun's 
remarks in the Senate, in the year 1838, during the debate on his celebrated 
resolutions on Slavery, precisely as Mr. Benton quotes in the " Thirty Years View." — 
See Appendix Congressional Globe, Second Session Twenty-fifth Congress, volume 6, 
page 72. 



424 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

and the establishment of the parallel of 36° 30' as a line north of which Slav- 
ery is prohibited, and permitted south of it. I took the opinion, in writing, 
of the Administration, as to the constitutionality of restraining Territories, 
which was explicit in favor of it ; and it was, that the eighth section of the act 
was applicable to Territories only, and not to States when they should be 
admitted into the Union.' " 

The third piece of testimony collected by Mr. Benton is : 

" An extract from the diary of Mr. John Quincy Adams, under date of 
the 3d of March, 1821, stating that the President on that day assembled his 
Cabinet, to ask their opinions on the two questions mentioned, which the 
whole Cabinet immediately answered unanimously and affirmatively ; that on 
the 5th, he sent the question in writing to the members of his Cabinet, to 
receive their written answers, to be filed in the Department of State ; and 
that, on the 6th, he took his own answer to the President, to be filed with the 
rest — all agreeing in the affirmative, and only differing, some in assigning, 
other not assigning, reasons for their opinions. The diary states that the 
President signed his approval of the Missouri act on the 6th [ which act shows 
he did, ] and requested Mr. Adams to have all the opinions filed in the De- 
partment of State." 

The other day, some gentleman upon the other side of the House 
read that diary, as extracted from Mr. Adams's journal. Mr. Benton 
only condenses it, and all will agree that it is correctly stated here. 
After that, in 1855, a letter was addressed by Mr. Benton to Mr. 
Clayton, who was Secretary of State in 1849-50, to know what had 
become of these written opinions. Mr. Clayton answered, under 
date of July 19, 1855, as follows: 

" In reply to your inquiry, I have to state that I have no recollection of 
having ever met with Mr. Calhoun's answer to Mr. Monroe's Cabinet queries 
as to the constitutionality of the Missouri compromise. It had not been found 
while I was in the Department of State, as I was then informed; but the 
archives of the Department disclose the fact that Mr. Calhoun, and other 
members of the Cabinet, did answer Mr. Monroe's questions. It appears, by 
an index, that these answers were filed among the archives of that department. 
I was told that they had been abstracted from the records, and could not be 
found ; but I did not make a search for them myself. I have never doubted 
that Mr. Calhoun at least acquiesced in the decision of the Cabinet of that 
day. Since I left the Department of State, I have heard it rumored that 
Mr. Calhoun's answer to Mr. Monroe's queries had been found ; but I know 
not upon what authority the statement was made." 

I think, Mr. Clerk, that if we were in a court of justice, and 
before a jury, with the fact in dispute whether Mr. Monroe's Cabi- 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 425 

net did make these answers affirmatively, and if I were maintaining 
the affirmative of that proposition, I should be sure to get the unan- 
imous verdict of a sensible jury on that point, on the evidence, I 
shall therefore assume it as true, as a matter of history, that, in the 
year 1821, James Monroe, President of the United States; John 
Quincy Adams, Secretary of State ; William H. Crawford, Secretary 
of the Treasury; John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War; Smith 
Thompson, Secretary of the Navy ; William Wirt, Attorney General, 
all agreed, after hearing that debate— going on, as it had been, for 
two years in Congress — with their minds imbued with all the argu- 
ments on both sides, came to the conclusion that Congress did pos- 
sess, always had possessed, and always would possess, the unqual- 
ified power to restrict Slavery in the Territories, or to make any 
other law they pleased on the subject. That is all the sin the Re- 
publican party has committed. I believe that Mr. Monroe did know 
something about the Constitution of the country. I believe that 
John Quincy Adams did understand something of the nature of this 
delicate machinery of ours, as it is now called. The Republican 
party is weak enough to believe that there are some men in the 
world who have brains in their heads besides themselves. They 
believe the men of 1821, as well as the great men of 1787 and 1804, 
all held the doctrines of the Republican party of 1860; and this, I 
think, I have proved. 

Sir, need I now call from their homes in eternity the great and 
good men who, in 1787, declared that it was not just or politic to 
permit Slavery in the territory northwest of the Ohio, and so 
ordained ? Need I call the shades of Monroe and his Cabinet from 
the "abodes of the blessed," to come here into this Hall, and declare 
again, in the presence of the world, the same doctrines they have 
declared under just such obligations as now rest upon us? I could 
wish that this majestic and venerated host could pass in review before 
the vision of the Democratic members here this day. Each and all 
would range themselves on the Republican side of this House ; for 
there, and there only, in this House, would they find the principles, 
poHcy and constitutional law, which they proclaimed, acted upon, 
and established, from the day they broke the yoke of foreign power 
up to the day when it pleased God to relieve them from their earthly 
trials, and take them to himself 

Mr. Clerk, I find myself at a loss to understand how it is possi- 
ble for the gentlemen on the other side to rid their minds of the 



^ 426 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

crushing weight of authority which presses against them, upon this 
subject, either as to the policy of restricting Slavery, or the power 
of Congress to do it. Will they assert that the men of 1787 were 
mistaken in the policy, and that Congress and the Executive Depart- 
ment, from 1804 to 1821, were mistaken in the point of constitu- 
tional power? Where is the enormous egotist to be found who will 
assert that he understands, to-day, the Constitution of the United 
States better than President Monroe and his entire Cabinet did 
in 1821? 

Monroe was a patriot and a soldier of the Revolution. He was 
familiar with all the deliberations of the wise men and all the 
thoughts and writings of his times which led to the formation of the 
Union and adoption of the Constitution. He was an anxious par- 
ticipant in the discussions concerning the powers vested in Congress 
by that Constitution. He had carefully watched its operations from 
the time of its adoption up to 1821, when he was called upon, under 
the responsibilities resting on the highest officer of the Government, 
to decide whether Congress possessed the power to prohibit Slavery 
in a "Territory." He was a Virginian, a slaveholder; and, if biased 
at all, that bias might be expected to incline him against the power. 
Such a man, such a President, on full deliberation, decided that such 
power did exist in, and by virtue of, that Constitution, and accord- 
ingly approved the act of Congress which exerted that power. 
John Ouincy Adams was his Secretary of State. A child of the 
Revolution, educated in the principles which brought that Revolu- 
tion to its glorious conclusion, thoroughly taught and studied in the 
science of jurisprudence, he brought to this very question all the 
powers of a mind naturally strong, strengthened and enriched by all 
the appliances of study, while its operations were freed from all sinis- 
ter influences, by candor and integrity which even party malignity 
has never questioned. Adams was a Northern man and not a slave- 
holder. He, too, agreed with Monroe, the Southern slaveholder. 
William H. Crawford, of Georgia, was then the Secretary of the 
Treasury. He was a Southern man and a slaveholder. He was at 
that time a most notable man among men who were indeed worthy 
of notice — a man of austere virtues, and yet of kindly and gener- 
ous nature. But, above almost all men of his time, he was remark- 
able and remarked for carrying what is called "strict construction" 
to great extremes. Every power not clearly granted, in terms, to 
the Federal Government, was, by him and his school, denied to the 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 427 

Government and reserved to the States or the people ; and this, too, 
whether such power were claimed for the executive, or legislative, or 
judicial department. In this characteristic he stood in perfect con- 
trast with his colleague in the War Department, Mr. Calhoun, who 
then held doctrines on this subject condemned by Mr. Crawford and 
his school as dangerous, as latitudinarian, Mr. Crawford had been 
much in public life ; had studied — as men of that day did — the Con- 
stitution, and all other forms of civil polity found in libraries accessible 
to them. His name and character will long live in the esteem of all 
Georgians, as well as in that of all Americans who venerate the wise 
and good. Crawford, strict constructionist as he was, slaveholder as 
he was, admitted that Congress had power to prohibit Slavery in a 
Territory. John C. Calhoun was also in this Cabinet council of 
1821. He was then Secretary of War. He was a South Carolinian, 
and a slaveholder ; a man of rare powers of mind, quick in discern- 
ing the point of merit in any question. His power of "generaliza- 
tion " was greater and more rapid in its processes than that of any 
man with whom I have had the good fortune to be acquainted. All 
Southern as he was, he, too, admitted this power to subsist in Con- 
gress ; and, as I think I have shown, gave his written opinion to that 
effect under all the grave responsibilities of a "Cabinet minister.'^ 
Smith Thompson, of New York, was then Secretary of the Navy. 
This gentleman is better known to the world as a Judge of the Su- 
preme Court of the United States, to which place he was transferred 
on account of his accurate and profound knowledge of law — law as 
a science — comprehending all subjects embraced in what are denom- 
inated national and municipal law. He was a Northern man, and to 
the four others I have enumerated he added the great weight of his 
opinion, concurring with them fully and entirely. 

But who was he, the then Attorney General of that Cabinet? — 
he whose entire official duty it was to advise the President and each 
one of the Cabinet on questions of law? Mr. Wirt was that Attor- 
ney General — a name known and respected by all lawyers who know 
anything of law ; a name equally known and respected by all, of all 
classes and professions, who admire true intellectual greatness com- 
bined with amenity of manners and amiability of temper that won 
the affections of all hearts ; a man of such rich and diversified intel- 
lect, that while he toiled in the profoundest depths of the richest 
mines of legal learning, yet found leisure and had the taste to gather 
from the gardens of polite letters some of the richest and rarest of 



428 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

their fruits and flowers ; and, to crown all, he was gifted with an elo- 
quence that charmed and enraptured all who heard him. To this 
Virginian, this slaveholder, this all-accomplished mind, our Repub- 
lican platform of this day was submitted. It was not then a great 
spring-board whence some insane aspirant for Presidential power was 
to leap into the coveted Executive chair ; it was not then a principle 
to be used only for the occasion, and to be announced to the world 
amid the hoarse clamor of popular strife, and then abandoned at the 
end of four years for some novelty more captivating to the popular 
ear. It was argued, considered, and decided, by such men as I have 
named, at a time when the old party names, Federalist and Repub- 
lican, had ceased to have a meaning; when the beacon fires of party 
war were quenched in the pure waters of a pervading American 
patriotism. 

As the Republican platform (so much derided and condemned 
now by learned gentlemen of the Democratic party) now reads, so 
did the great tribunal to which I am now referring decide the law of 
the Constitution. To this august court I appeal, from the 
hasty opinions of your modern politicians and the teachings and 
paragraphs cut from obscure newspapers. To that tribunal I sum- 
mon, for judgment and sentence of death, these new notions which 
teach us that this same Constitution, which in 1821 permitted Con- 
gress to forbid Slavery in "Territories," now, in 1860, tramples on 
Congress and its power, scoffs at all power, Federal or Territorial, 
and bears Slavery, as the phrase goes, '^siio propria vigore," into all 
Territories ; and only pauses to bow with royal courtesy to the 
crowned and sceptred majesty of State Constitutions. Hither, also, 
do I summon that other modern partisan war-cry, " popular sover- 
eignty," born of the partisan struggles of 1854. From the heated 
furnaces of political strife this fire went forth. It shed its baleful 
light over Kansas for three troubled years ; blazed up to noontide, 
and then, like a tropical sun, dashed down the sky, cast a lurid blaze 
over the chaos it had created, and sunk, quenched in blood, leaving 
behind it only the spectral images of confusion and war which its 
brief day had evoked into life. 

Mr. Clerk, in treating this subject of the power of Congress 
over Territories, the object of our inquiry is to ascertain whether 
any clause in the Constitution gives, in terms or by fair implication, 
the power in question. In all such cases the inquiry is, what is the 
true intent and meaning of the Constitution? The words employed 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 429 

are to be carefully criticised; and if they be plainly such as to give 
or deny the power, then the meaning is ascertained. If doubts arise, 
however, from an examination of the words employed, it is always 
safe to ascertain, in other modes, what they did mean who wrote and 
enacted these words. Hence, the acts of individuals, done in per- 
formance of their own written engagements, show what they under- 
stood their own written contracts to mean. So the conduct of 
nations in the execution of treaties is always resorted to to show 
what each nation understood its treaty contracts to bind it to perform. 
This plain rule of good sense, when applied to Constitutions or legis- 
lative enactments, is called " cotemporaneous construction." 

Sir, we know that while the Convention that formed the Con- 
stitution was in session, in the year 1787, the old Congress, under 
the old Articles of Confederation, passed the celebrated ordinance of 
1787, whereby that Congress did enact that there should be "no 
Slavery or involuntary servitude " in the then Northwestern Territory. 
It is only reasonable to suppose that the Convention then in session, 
seeing this power exerted by Congress under the old Government, 
should conclude that the same ought to be granted to Congress in 
the new Constitution, which was to supersede the old "Confedera- 
tion." Accordingly we find a clause inserted, which says: 

" Congress shall have power to make all needful rules and regulations 
concerning the territory and other property of the United States." 

The men v/ho enacted the ordinance of 1787, and those who 
formed the Constitution, were many of them the same persons. Is 
it not an irresistible conclusion that they did intend, by the clause I 
have quoted, to confer the same power upon Congress, by that 
clause which they had in the old Congress in the same year, 
themselves exerted, by virtue of the powers given to Congress, 
by the "Articles of Confederation," under which they then acted? 
Let us not be told that the power "to make all needful rules and 
regulations concerning the territory," was inserted in haste, or was 
not well examined and well understood. Before the Constitution 
was adopted, and after it was formed, it underwent the closest scru- 
tiny. The public prints teemed with criticisms upon all its provis- 
ions. State Conventions debated it with all the interest its vast 
importance naturally elicited, and with all the power which the great- 
est minds, in that age of truly great men, could bring to the discus- 
sion. They knew the meaning and import of every word, and the 



430 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

extent and intent of every power granted to each branch of the new 
Government. Now, we also know that the leading men in the Con- 
vention that formed this Constitution were many of them leading 
and active men in the legislative, judicial and executive departments 
of the Government under this Constitution. In every office they 
may have thus held, they took a solemn oath to "observe the Con- 
stitution," it being the same they themselves had made. We must 
admit, therefore, that they did not intend to violate any clause in 
that Constitution. Even the Democratic party will not assert that 
the great men of that day would be likely to commit perjury, and, 
in doing it, destroy their own great work ; for all of them regarded 
the Union under that Constitution as furnishing the only hope 
remaining to them and their posterity, of realizing their long-cher- 
ished object, rational freedom regulated by law. Did not they think 
they had the constitutional power to do that? They did it in 1798 ; 
they did it in 1804; they did it in 1820. These were fathers of the 
Revolution ; the apostles were there, making their own commentary 
upon their own gospel ; and this was the commentary : That Con- 
gress make laws for the territory, composed as it was of a heteroge- 
neous and discordant population, not likely to agree among them- 
selves upon any system of civil polity. We treat them as infants. 
We, owning the country, are the proper legislative power to give it 
laws. That is the way they treated it ; and I never shall believe that 
they intended that that power should not be there when they made 
the Constitution. If they had not intended it to be there, they 
never would have exerted it. They would have asked for an amend- 
ment of the Constitution if they had thought it necessary ; but they 
went right forward, and exerted the power, because they knew the 
power to be there. One of two conclusions you must come to, or 
admit the full weight of my authorities : either that these men vio- 
lated the Constitution which they had sworn to support, knowingly 
and wilfully, or that they, the makers and cotemporaneous exponents 
of the Constitution, did conscientiously believe that it gave them 
this power. Who knows so well what he meant to do, what he 
meant to say, and what he meant to inculcate, as the author of the 
book himself? And if he be honest, he will always give you the 
true meaning. Thus we have this constitutional gospel delivered to 
us by no remote posterity, not acquainted with the writers ; by no 
commentator or historian at all; but by the fathers, the very men 
themselves who wrote the book. And we, of the Republican party, 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 431 

are to be charged with treason, and with an odious attempt to disrupt 
this glorious Union which these very men made for us ; we are to be 
denounced for beUeving these opinions to be right, instead of beHev- 
ing the doctrines of modern commentators on that Constitution, who 
have found out that the authors of it did not know what they meant ! 

Now we have got through with the legislative and executive his- 
tory of this Constitution of ours. I was stating yesterday what the 
Supreme Court had done. A friend of mine has been kind enough 
to furnish me with a speech made by a gentleman in the Senate who 
has collected the very authorities to which I wanted to refer. From 
that I shall read to show what the judiciary think about this matter. 
As I said yesterday, such is the structure of our Government, that, 
if there be any dispute about the constitutional power of Congress 
in making a law, and an individual right comes in question, so as to 
give the judicial department of the Government cognizance of it, 
and they decide that the law is unconstitutional, I know of no relief 
against that decision, if it shall be wrong. 

I wish to show what the judicial department of the Government 
thought of this power of Congress to govern the Territories. There 
is a case referred to which I had not before me yesterday, and I have 
been unable to get the book from the Library this morning. I take 
it for granted that it is here correctly referred to, and that the quota- 
tions are correct. It is the case of Sere vs. Pitot. It occurred in 
1810, and is reported in 6 Cranch, page 336. The Supreme Court 
of the United States, without a dissenting voice, in the most explicit 
language, then declared "that the power of governing and legislat- 
ing for a Territory is the inevitable consequence of the right to 
acquire and hold it." 

Let me advert to that Supreme Court. Who were upon the 
bench of the Supreme Court at that day? Look at the judicial rec- 
ords of the country. There was John Marshall, and all of them like 
him in great qualities of mind and nature. Virginians know who I 
mean when I refer to John Marshall. Questions are not brought up 
in that court as they are here. A gentleman jumps up in the morn- 
ing here to set himself right before the country. [ Laughter]. To 
do that, he offers a resolution. The House votes on it. One gen- 
tleman speaks over on that side, and another gentleman speaks on this 
side, pretty nearly all the time he has the floor. Fifty gentlemen sit 
between, engaged in an earnest colloquy as to what the speakers are 
saying. [Laughter]. It is to be inferred that we have a fair oppor- 



432 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

tunity of knowing the opinions of gentlemen. That is the way we 
decide great questions here at this time in our present unorganized 
condition. Go into the Supreme Court. Not a whisper is heard. 
The court is opened, and sits for four hours. You might, at the 
time I refer to, have argued a question for three weeks, if you had 
the power to hold out so long, and every judge would have been 
found listening every day and every hour and every minute. All the 
learning of the law, all the history of the law, all the logic of the 
law, is laid before that court ; and the court, accustomed to look into 
the intricacies of the law, will revolve all that has been brought 
before them in their minds, and pronounce what is and what is not 
law. They have sober and discreet minds. It is a better court than 
this. I do not mean to cast any disparagement upon your court, 
Mr. Clerk. I wish, if it could be so, that from the beginning of this 
session the Journal Clerk had every night blotted out the record of 
our proceedings, that they might not be heard of any more among 
men. When I entered this Hall a new man the other day, there was 
a strange feeling came upon me that I was not in the Congress of the 
United States. Over the chair where the Speaker presided sat, in 
the old time, the Muse of History with her pen. The men who 
built the first Hall of the House of Representatives thought that 
this grand inquest of this great Republic was to make that history 
which should illustrate our annals. Clio was there, emblematical of 
what was to be submitted to the dread tribunal of posterity. 

But to the decision of the court. The decision referred to is to 
be found in 6 Cranch, page 336. There was no dissenting opinion. 
It was in 1810. There was no Democratic party in those days; but 
there was a Republican party. This question was not decided the 
year before a Presidential election. Time is always a circumstance 
to be looked at in referring to a historical fact. There was then a 
powerful party in this country called the Republican party, and there 
was a remnant of an old and most respectable party called Federal- 
ists ; and they were discussing whether we should make war upon 
England or upon France. I have always thought they were not sure 
which one of these nations to fight ; and that they were never sure 
they had hit upon the right one ; for they had quite equal causes of 
war against both. They recollected La Fayette was with us, and 
that, I believe, turned the scales against England. Says the court of 
that day : 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 433 

** The power of governing and legislating for a Territory is the inevita- 
ble consequence of the right to acquire and hold territory. Could this posi- 
tion be contested, the Constitution declares that ' Congress shall have power 
to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the terri- 
tory or other property belonging to the United States ;' accordingly, we find 
Congress possessing and exercising the absolute and undisputed power of gov- 
erning and legislating for the Territory of Orleans." 

Do you not think, Mr. Clerk, that John Marshall was a man 
who knew and understood the subject then before him? If any 
question could be submitted to the mind of that man with which he 
was more familiar than any other, it was a question arising under the 
powers of the Government as defined in that Constitution. We 
know that the whole court agreed with him in 1810. I have shown 
the legislative history of this question. Now, it was declared by the 
Supreme Court, as early as 1810, that the power to govern the Ter- 
ritories arises under the power to acquire territory, or under the 
clause of the Constitution authorizing Congress to make all needful 
rules and regulations respecting the territory and other property of 
the United States. So much for 1810. Now, some years have 
elapsed. In 1 Peters, page 511, there is a reference to the same 
question, and the law is laid down in the same terms as in 1810. In 
the meantime, says Judge Marshall, "Florida continues to be a Ter- 
ritory of the United States, governed by that clause of the Constitu- 
tion which empowers Congress to make all needful rules and regula- 
tions respecting the territory or other property of the United States." 
He goes on : 

" Perhaps the power of governing a Territory belonging to the United 
States, which has not, by becoming a State, acquired the means of self-gov- 
ernment, may result necessarily from the facts that it is not within the juris- 
diction of any particular State, and is within the power and jurisdiction of the 
United States. The right to govern may be the inevitable consequence of 
the right to acquire territory. Whichever may be the source whence the 
power may be derived, the possession of it is unquestioned." 

These Republican traitors, these dupes, these insurrectionists, 
these one hundred and thirteen men who were, as you say, by 
intendment, at Harper's Ferry with John Brown ; these men have 
committed no sin but that of believing, with Judge Marshall, and 
with the Supreme Court up to the year 1828, in the opinions they 
entertain. I shall show, by and by, that the same doctrine now held 
29 



434 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

by the Republican party was carried forward by an unbroken current 
of decisions up to the year 1852. 

Much is said by the present Democratic party just now about 
the sanctity of constitutional law, as delivered to us by the Supreme 
Court. I revere that great court, and will abide its decisions, when 
made upon any question brought fairly on the record before them ; 
which, I maintain, was not done, as some suppose, in the famous 
Dred Scott case. Gentlemen on the other side would disregard the 
solemn decisions of that court for half a century, and cling to an 
obiter dichivi, casually thrown out in a single case recently. They 
remind me of a dispute between two excellent clergymen. They 
both regarded the Old and New Testaments very properly as the ora- 
cles of God; but they differed as to their meaning. "Well, brother,'* 
said the old Methodist, "we agree well enough about the Adamic 
law and the Abrahamic covenant, and the Divine legation of Moses ; 
but when we come to the Christian dispensation, you will fork off." 
Our Democratic brethren here have a strange disposition to "fork 
off" from us, and run after the casual remarks of the court — the 
'^obiter dicta'" of the court, to express it in judicial phrase — while 
they travel on with us in the well-paved highway up to 1852. 

Mr. Clerk, I know that this long, wandering journey among the 
legislative annals and judicial records of the country is very tedious ; 
but truth is a jewel of such precious value, that we are told we must 
go to the bottom of a deep well after it, if, perchance, we may 
find it there. I wish to let down my pitcher for another draught of 
that sort of water from the well of the Supreme Court. Two decis- 
ions of that court we have had already. Here is the third in the 
year 1853. We are coming now close upon the period of the Dem- 
ocratic Hegira. In 1853, a very few weeks before the introduction 
of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, there was an opinion pronounced by 
Judge Wayne, at the December term of that court, in which he 
said: 

' ' The Territory [ speaking of California ] had been ceded as a conquest, 
and was to be preserved and governed as such, until the sovereignty to which 
it passed [the United States] had legislated for it." 

He proceeds : 

"That sovereignty was the United States, under the Constitution, by 
which power had been given to Congress ' to dispose of and make all need- 
ful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging 
to the United States.' " 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 435 

Then, I say, from the earHest period of our Government down 
to 1853, everybody — all agreeing to it; all shades of politics; Con- 
gresses of every hue of politics; all the courts of the country, all 
over it — regarded the question as clearly settled, as the Republicans 
now hold it I wish this speech of mine, so far as it goes, imperfect 
as it is, to be considered as " Corwin's Apology for Republicanism." 
Mr. Barclay wrote "An Apology for Quakerism," a capital book, 
with a good deal of sense in it. My Apology for Republicanism 
may not be quite as authoritative. 

What I have proved, I think to the satisfaction of all, is, that 
the men who framed the Constitution acted upon the power to gov- 
ern the Territories, believing it to be there ; and they acted under 
oath ; that the legislative department of the Government always 
have exercised it up to the year 1854; and that the judicial depart- 
ment of the Government decided the law thus, whenever the ques- 
tion arose, up to the year 1853. Now, I say to gentlemen upon the 
other side, if you can put yourself in as good society as this Repub- 
lican party are in, then I will agree to pay a visit to you, and per- 
haps stay all night. [Laughter.] Until you do, I choose to put up 
at the Republican hotel. [Laughter.] I wish to compare grave- 
yards, monuments, epitaphs and authorities with the Democratic 
party. We Republicans may possibly be under a great mistake upon 
this subject ; but if we are, the most intelligent people, according to 
your own account of it — and I believe it true — have been under the 
same mistake from the beginning. 

Sir, I am an old Whig, and the very doctrines which the Whig 
party always inculcated upon this subject are the cardinal doctrines 
of the Repubhcan party; and the only constitutional doctrines they 
have enunciated were born of a violation of the same Whig doctrines 
in 1854. The Republican party had never had a name, and never 
had an existence, in that form and that name, had it not been for the 
proceedings of that Congress in 1854. I suppose that every man 
will admit this. And why? Why was that treasonable party, as 
you now denominate it, brought into existence? Do you suppose 
that all the people of the North are insane ? I would like an inquest 
of lunacy to try the question, and I would show where the insanity 
is. It was in that year 1854 that you proposed to renounce this 
doctrine of the control of Congress over the Territories. It was then 
that you determined to depart from that compromise of 1850, to 
which my friend from Illinois [Mr. McClernand] just referred me, 



436 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

and with which I was satisfied. Why was I satisfied with it? In 
the first place, when the compromise measures of 1850 were passed, 
I was not a member of the Senate. I was a member of the Cabi- 
net when they were brought to President Fillmore. I was for their 
approval. Congress had determined the details ; it was for the Pres- 
ident to see whether the laws were constitutional, not whether they 
were good laws. It is sometimes said that Congress, by the com- 
promises of 1850, renounced its power over the Territories. 
Mr. McClernand — Renounced the policy of exercising it. 

Mr. Corwin — I hold that to be a very different question. I 
suppose that Congress has the power to declare war against the 
whole world, although nobody intends to exercise it. What I speak 
of is the law. The gentleman will find, if he looks to the law, that 
Congress reserved this power. Utah and New Mexico were to 
report their laws to Congress. If Congress disapproved of the laws, 
they were to be null and void. Does that look like surrendering the 
legislative power of Congress over the Territories? If Congress had 
not even expressly reserved the power, the acts organizing those Ter- 
ritories, in view of the previous history of this Territorial question, 
could not properly receive a different construction. But the power 
was expressly reserved, so that there could be no mistake about it ; 
and every law made by either of those Territories might have been 
vetoed by Congress. Now, I want to stand upon high authority. I 
was in Congress during about ten months of that debate. A certain 
orator, in a place I will not name, for fear I may offend the sensibili- 
ties of some gentlemen here, in speaking of the battle of Okecho- 
bee, said: 

" Gentlemen, I can say, as an ancient Greek poet said, quorum pars fui . 
If you have not had the advantages of education, (and I dare say many of 
you have not), that means a part of whom I was which." [Great laughter]. 

I heard all of that Senatorial debate. I certainly heard all the 
earnest debate — listened to it for several months. I heard the sub- 
ject debated by the great men of the day — by old men and by 
young men, too. Webster was there ; Clay was there ; Mr. Calhoun 
made a speech upon the subject, also. Will you read it now? He 
scarcely changed his opinions after that. He said that this doctrine 
of the Territories having the right to make laws for themselves was 
absurd. Besides, said he, it is contrary to the practice of the Gov- 
ernment from its foundation down to the present time. I do not say 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 437 

it is absurd, but I agree with him in the historical fact — that it is 
contrary to the practices of the Government. Some of my friends 
at the North, and some at the West, too, thought that these compro- 
mise measures of 1850 did abandon the notion that it was expedi- 
ent to legislate for the Territories. I have no quarrel to make with 
them now on that point. I know how they treated Webster. I 
hope God will forgive them for that — I cannot. What were the doc- 
trines of Clay and Webster on the subject? They repeated them 
over and over again. Those men understood the law of nations. 
They never had any dispute about them in the Senate of the United 
States. By the law of nations, when one sovereignty cedes a colony 
or country to another, with the power of the Government passing 
with it, all the institutions of the ceded territory not incompatible 
with the fundamental law of the country to which it is ceded remain 
just as they were at the time of the cession, until they are changed 
by positive legislation. Now, apply that doctrine to Mexico. Not 
only was there no positive law in that territory, when acquired under 
the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, making Slavery legal, but there 
was a positive law against its existence. Negro Slavery had been 
abrogated by a decree of the Mexican Government, which had not 
been altered or changed with regard to any of the territory which we 
acquired. What was the effect of that ? 

First, then, that there was no necessity for prohibiting Slavery 
in those new territories, because Slavery never could be there until 
some legislative power, having authority to make the law, established 
it. Slavery is the offspring of local. State or municipal law. The 
sovereign legislative power over the Territories being with Congress, 
Slavery never could be established there by law till Congress had 
made the law, or approved the law of the Territorial Legislature 
establishing it. Here were two reasons. First, it never could 
exist without positive law ; and secondly, there was a positive law 
forbidding it. Such were the views and reasons assigned by the 
eminent men of whom I speak, for not prohibiting Slavery in the ter- 
ritory acquired from Mexico by law of Congress. 

When Mr. Clay rose in his place — whose majestic form I think 
I now see before me — and declared that no power on earth would 
ever induce him to plant Slavery anywhere where it did not exist; 
when he said this, prepared to refer all his life's history to the tribu- 
nal of posterity, and knowing that he was soon to appear before Him 
who knows the motives of men, all understood his principles then, 



438 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

and felt their truth and power. Mr. Webster had the same view of 
the question precisely. He repeated it over and over again, and 
said he would have put a restriction upon the Territory if there had 
been a legal necessity for it. This idea of the Constitution introduc- 
ing Slavery everywhere, when not forbidden by a State Constitution, 
had not become fashionable then. That was in 1850, and the Dred 
Scott decision came after that. 

Mr. Clerk, I speak of the different departments of the Govern- 
ment with perfect respect, but I undertake to say that neither Mr. 
Clay nor Mr. Webster could ever have been led to believe that the 
Supreme Court of the United States would decide that Congress had 
no power to legislate over the subject of Slavery in the Territories. 
I shall not here discuss the Dred Scott decision, for I have passed 
over that already. 

Now, sir, in the most extreme and warmest brotherly kindness, 
I will show a little of the antiquities of the Democratic party. 
[Laughter]. I shall speak of the Democratic party of the North. 
De mortiiis nihil nisi bonum. [Laughter]. A celebrated man in our 
country has said that that maxim ought to be changed to ^' de vior- 
tids nihil nisi vernm." I take that proposition and adopt it. I do 
not mean to accuse the Democratic party of any crime, except of 
being once in the right, and afterwards pursuing the wrong. My 
colleague from the Dayton district [Mr. Vallandigham], in a spirit 
of candor, told us the other day that the Democratic party of Ohio 
had been wrong on this question of Slavery. I wish to show that 
he was right in that declaration, according to his view of it, and that 
if he would just change that word "wrong" into "right," the Dem- 
ocratic party were right according to the doctrines of the fathers of 
the Government ; but they wandered away from the institutions of 
Moses, to the worship of Astheroth and other diabolical divinities. 
I will quote a little of their gospel, from cathedral authority, in the 
State of Ohio, in the year 1848, whereby I wish to show to the 
Democratic party of the South, as it is called, how great an act they 
have achieved in having converted the most hardened and abomina- 
ble sinners who have existed in the world. [Laughter]. 

Democratic gentlemen from the South must summon their Chris- 
tian charity to this work. They must remember that our Demo- 
cratic Sauls of Tarsus were on the way to Damascus in 1848, bent 
upon persecuting Democratic Christians in the South. You see how 
they divided the clothes of the Southern Stephen, and stoned him to 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 439 

death. You will rejoice, however, to see how " a great light shone 
upon them" in 1854, and how they heard about that time a voice 
from the South, and lo! upon the instant, they donned their "sandal 
shoon and scallop shell," and, with meek submission and pious zeal, 
they made their pilgrimage from the icy regions of old constitutional 
faith to the sunny realms of Southern novelties, where, to this day, 
they remain in "brotherly love." Miracles had not ceased. But 
who shall say whether these wanderers from their old homes may 
not grow weary of their new abodes, and yet turn their faces to 
Judea, crying, "When I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right 
hand forget its cunning!" But let me refer you to their heresies* 
but be not alarmed, for they are all safe now : 

" Resolved, That the people of Ohio now, as they have always done, 
looking upon the institution of Slavery as an evil, unfavorable to the full 
development of our institutions " 

These Democratic people have had greatly at heart that "devel- 
opment of our institutions." They were speaking for the people of 
the State of Ohio — for the Whigs held the same ideas exactly, with 
one exception, which I shall state directly 

" unfavorable to the full development of our institutions ; and that, enter- 
taining these sentiments, they will feel it to be their duty to use all the pow- 
ers consistent with the national compact to prevent its increase, to mitigate, 
[here is the point on which I differ with them] and finally eradicate them." 

The classical mind of my colleague from the Dayton district 
suggests to him the etymological meaning of that horrible word 
[laughter] "eradicate" — not lop it off, not prevent its growing into 
other fields from those in which it is now planted ; but to walk into 
the South, and take Slavery there, and grub it up — provided the 
Constitution will allow it. What do you charge these Seward men 
with ? You say that they will act according to the forms of the Con- 
stitution ; that they will get an overruling power in the popular 
department of the Government — in this House ; that they will get a 
majority of the Senate ; that they will have a willing, obedient Exec- 
utive in the White House ; and then, that they will walk over the 
Constitution. That is precisely what the Democratic party of Ohio 
proposed to do. We Whigs never did propose to do that. We 
never believed that we had any business to "eradicate" Slavery. 
We never intimated that we could interfere with it in the South, or 
that we desired to interfere with it. But your Democratic brethren, 



440 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

with whom you arc now associating so happily, believed that identi- 
cal doctrine. You charge Mr. 'Seward with having introduced into 
the brain of John lirown the idea that Slavery ought to be uprooted 
in the States. I suppose he had seen this resolution passed by the 
great Democratic party of Ohio in 1848. I think he lived in that 
State. You have been spending days and weeks — seven weeks — in 
proving that John lirown never would have been at Harper's Ferry, 
and that Helper never would have written his book — although he 
wrote it two or three years before Mr. Seward made the remark — if 
they had not heard that William H. Seward said there was "an irre- 
pressible conflict" between free labor and slave labor. That is alto- 
gether too philosophical an idea for an enthusiast like John Ikown to 
take hold of. He had been reading the Old Testament. He was a 
member of the old New ICngland school of Presbyterians. He 
believed it was his duty to draw the sword of the Lord and Gideon 
and to smite the heathen, everywhere he could, with sword and bat- 
tle-ax — not with argument. That is the way with that set of people. 
In e\cry balllc-ficld of the Revolution, if these Yankee regiments 
were there, and had the slightest chance before the encounter with 
the l^ritish foe, they would kneel down and invoke the aid of that 
God who of old liatl bared His right arm for the salvation of His 
people. These were the kind of men from whom John Brown 
sprang. When he saw the great State of Ohio represented by the 
Democratic party, and heard them say that Slavery was an enormous 
evil — an evil which prevented the development of the glorious insti- 
tutions for which his fathers had fought, what would be his reflec- 
tion ? "What is to be done to eradicate this institution?" He 
would say: "I will strike at this unholy thing that impedes the 
onward march of this Government to that consummation which shall 
give freedom to all men !" 

Mr. Vallandigham — The other part of the resolution has not been 
read. As there are some peculiar beauties in it, illustrative of the first part, 
I regret that my distinguished colleague has been so unfortunate as not to 
have it in his possession." 

Mk. Cokwin — That is the whole of one resolution. The next 

resoluticMi reads : 

" /)'/// be it fiDthcr resolved. That the Democracy of Ohio do, at the same 
time, fully recognize the doctrine held by the early fathers of the Republic, 
and still maintained by the Democratic party in all the States, that to each 
State belongs tlie right to adopt and modify its own municipal laws ; to regu- 



ON THE SLAViOllY QUESTION. 441 

late its own internal affairs; to hold and maintain an equal and independent 
sovereignty with each and every other State ; and that upon these rights the 
National Legislature can neither legislate nor encroach." 

That is an entirely different thing. What the Democratic party 
proposed to do was to eradicate Slavery by some means or other. 
The great sin that the Republican party has committed is, it holds at 
this day the doctrine which the Democratic party announced in 1848, 
though it does not pretend, and has never pretended, that Slavery 
should be eradicated in the States, otherwise than by the States 
themselves. 

I will cheerfully read the resolutions of the Ohio Democracy in 
1840, to which my colleague refers. Here they are: 

" Resolved, That, in the opinion of this Convention, Congress ought not, 
without the consent of the people of the District, and of the States of Vir- 
ginia and Maryland, to abolish Slavery in the District of Columbia, and that 
the efforts now making for that purj)Ose, by organized societies in the free 
States, are hostile to the spirit of the Constitution, and destructive to the har- 
mony of the Union. 

" Resolved, That Slavery, being a domestic institution recognized by the 
Constitution of the United States, we, as citizens of a free State, have no 
right to interfere with it ; and that the organizing of societies and associations 
in the free States, in opposition to the institutions of sister States, while pro- 
ductive of no good, may be the cause of much mischief; and while such 
associations, for political purposes, ought to be discountenanced by every 
lover of peace and concord, no sound Democrat will have part or lot with 
them. 

" Resolved, That political Abolitionism is but ancient Federalism, under 
a new guise ; and that the political action of anti-slavery societies is only a 
device for the overthrow of Democracy." 

Now, Mr. Clerk, it becomes me, of course, to make some 
remarks. They had Abolition societies springing up in those days, 
and at that time it was doubtful with which party these Abolitionists 
would vote. They put up a separate ticket, and it was this very 
ticket that elected a President of the United States in 1844, and 
changed the history and destiny of this Republic. Gentlemen 
remind me that Governor Chase, of Ohio, is a good Republican 
now, and a member of the Republican party, and was a member 
of the Liberty party in 1844. I believe all this is true. Governor 
Chase's principles are now well known. He is a Republican now; 
nothing more. All men who believe, as the Abolitionists say they 



442 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

believe, that Slavery is such an inherent wrong that the Consti- 
tution and laws can give it no validity, will go with the Repub- 
lican party for restricting it in any place where it does not exist, 
though it is now a fact that Abolitionists, as a party, will have 
no affiliation with the Republicans While at the same time, this 
Abolition Society, which always was opposed to the Whig party, 
because they did not go far enough upon this subject, defeated 
Henry Clay, the great Whig champion, made Mr. Polk President, 
acquired territory, and brought upon you the very questions which 
are now before you. 

What I mean to say, sir, is, that in 1848 the Northern Demo- 
cratic party held these doctrines, going further than the Whig party 
of that day, reaching out their arms further to get hold of Slavery 
in the States — for I conceive their action means nothing else — in 
some form, by public opinion, or in some other way, to restrict it, 
and finally to eradicate it. Well, they went on their way rejoicing. 
But in 1848, it may be remembered, the Democratic party was car- 
ried captive to Babylon ; Zachary Taylor was elected President, and 
he was a Whig. The Democracy hung their harps upon the willows, 
by the streams of Babylon, and lifted up their voices and wept, 
[laughter] and mourned over the slain of the daughters of their peo- 
ple. What then happened? Why, we maintained the doctrine that 
you may restrict Slavery ; we stood with the fathers, the courts, the 
Congresses and the Presidents, in an unbroken and unobstructed cur- 
rent of authority, up to the year 1852. The Democrats of the 
North woke up suddenly, and said that Slavery was a very good 
thing — that it helped to develop the resources of the country, and 
improve it. 

I only want to show that the Republicans cannot be converted 
as quickly as the Democrats. I only want to show that we are some- 
what obstinate in our old opinions, and that when we go back, and 
get into the assemblies of the Fathers — old men whose garments were 
yet wet with the waters of the Red Sea through which they had 
passed for our deliverance — we find that they held the Republican 
doctrines with respect to the Territories. We cannot account for 
the sudden conversion of our Democratic brethren of the North. I 
hope they are happy in their new faith. I want all men to be happy, 
all people to be happy — men, women, and children. I see that they 
are happy. For instance, if the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. 
Crawford] were to get into a loving mood with the Democracy of 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 443 

the North, he might murmur in the ear of my colleague [Mr. Val- 
LANDIGHAM ] a verse from the elegies of Shenstone : 

" Dear region of silence and shade." 

in reference to the Democratic party, [laughter] and then Mr. Vallan- 
digham, in his softest notes of affection, would take up the strain — 

" Soft scenes of contentment and ease. 

Where I have so happily strayed, 
Since naught in thy absence could please." 

Now, it is pleasant to see them thus dwelling together; for it is 
impossible for such a man as I am, much as I am opposed to their 
doctrines, to fail to sympathize with men, when I see they are per- 
fectly happy. Long may they live ; long may they live ; for if they 
were to die suddenly, they might die in their sins. [Great laughter.] 

A very curious question is this thing of life, and what a man 
may do in a lifetime. In 1848 the Democratic party, with their eye- 
balls bloodshot, and the perspiration dropping off their noses, like 
one of our sugar-trees in February, upon the south side of a hill, 
[loud laughter] with their resolution in one hand, and the torch of 
Abolition philosophy in the other, marched through the country, 
proclaiming universal liberty, and the final advent of that day when 
Slavery should be no longer recognized in the land. That is what 
they did in eight short years — between 1848 and 1856. That is but 
a short time in the annals of this country. Suppose any man had 
been gifted as it is supposed the Wandering Jew was ; suppose 
Adam had been cursed with a continued existence up to this day, 
and had started off with this doctrine in the beginning, and had 
changed every eight years, how many times would he have changed ? 
[Laughter.] Three-score and ten years seem to be the allotted period 
of man in this age of the world ; and in that time he might change 
seven or eight times. Now, my Republican friends, do not be dis- 
couraged. My Democratic friends upon the other side of the 
House, do not let me make you unhappy. This is the year before 
the Presidential election. Do not flatter yourselves that your church 
is well founded, and that you can go through another Presidential 
election as you went through the last. Besides, man is given to 
change; mutability is stamped on all things. "Man is of few 
days and full of sorrow," [laughter] "he cometh forth like a flower, 
is cut down, and fleeth away like a shadow" — every eight years. 
[Roars of laughter.] 

In 1850 the present fugitive slave law was passed. Now, it is 



444 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

always necessary, in order to understand the gyrations of political 
parties, to know what happened accidentally or incidentally about a 
particular time. A gentleman, who had been judge of our Supreme 
Court of Ohio, was a Democratic candidate for Governor of Ohio in 
1852. Mr. Fillmore was then President, and his was called a Whig 
Administration. The extreme anti-Slavery people of the State of 
Ohio did not like him. They abhorred him. Mr. Fillmore was 
President at the time of the passage of these compromise measures. 
What had the Democratic party to complain of in them ? Nothing. 
The fugitive slave law had been passed, and Mr. Fillmore had given 
it his approval. Judge Wood, the candidate of the Democratic 
party, which had a great majority in Ohio, was elected Governor of 
the State, and in his message to the Legislature he said : 

"While public opinion may be divided, perhaps, on the law [the fugi- 
tive slave bill] there is, nevertheless, another matter in close connection with 
it, on which it is believed the sentiments of the people are entirely united. 
The area of Slavery must never be extended in this Government while the 
voice, the united voice, and action of Ohio, in any constitutional form, can 
stay it. Here, with propriety, we may take our stand. Thus far, proud 
wave, shalt thou advance, but no further shalt thou come." 

What did that mean? You shall never have another slave State 
in the Union. You shall never establish Slavery in another Territory 
of the United States. The political voice of the Democratic party 
of Ohio had spoken in that language in 1848. In 1852, the embod- 
iment of it in the gubernatorial office of that State proclaimed the 
sentiments that I have read. I do not say now that Governor Wood 
was wrong, or that the Democratic party was wrong ; but I only say 
that mutability is stamped on all human things. 

Now, I ask, how can the Democratic people of the North sit 
still and hear the Republican party denounced as disorganizers and 
disunionists, and as disloyal to the Constitution, as they are 
denounced every hour and every day? The accusing eloquence of 
these Southern men has been brought in full volume of rich rhetoric, 
and launched on the heads of the Republican party, while, as I have 
shown, they have only followed in the footsteps of the Northern 
Democrats. The only difference is, that, as we think we have 
derived our principles from the founders of the Republic, and as our 
doctrines are sanctified by executive and judicial and legislative 
approbation, we choose rather to follow these old principles than to 
take up with new-fangled doctrines. Can you not forgive us for 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 445 

that? If we be mistaken, can you not suppose that, at least, we 
think we are doing right? Do you suppose we ever intend to go 
into your States, and interfere with you there? There is not a man 
of you who can delude himself into the belief that we have any idea 
of subverting this glorious Union, which we worship so much that 
we believe every word and every syllable of the fathers' sayings. 
Now, I wish to announce that the day has gone by that these things 
will be heard without response. This question shall be tried here, if 
we can ever organize. Then it shall be brought to the standard of 
constitutional law, on canons of construction that have been admit- 
ted ever since the intellect of man operated on the construction of 
language; and we will try conclusions with the gentlemen of the 
South. Moreover, if you announce, as you have done, that this 
Union shall be dissolved, that this constitutional Confederacy of ours 
shall be broken up, because the people of the North choose to elect 
a President — a man whom you do not like — we shall see where the 
treason really lies. 

That is my view of the subject I think I am the most placable 
man that was ever born of woman. I am prepared to enter into this 
controversy with gentlemen like brethren — to controvert these mat- 
ters as statesmen, if we can elevate ourselves to that position, and 
submit to a candid world to decide who is right. If the world decide 
against us, depend upon it that we shall believe we have misappre- 
hended the public opinion of the country, and shall submit to what- 
ever award that public opinion may make. That, in this country, is 
the final arbiter of all controversies of this kind, and must be obeyed. 
In the meantime, I warn Democratic gentlemen to remember that a 
doctrine is now coming up from the South, that the inhabitants of a 
Territory have no power to prohibit Slavery therein. Parties have 
so divided the people of the country, that they have begun to con- 
sider themselves enemies ; and we, instead of considering ourselves 
the "conscript fathers" of the people, bound to consider the inter- 
ests, not of one State, but of all the States, have commenced to 
regard ourselves as the diplomatic Representatives of particular sec- 
tions of the country. I hold that every man on this floor is the 
Representative of every man, woman and child in the Republic ; and 
every act which he does, in a national aspect, must operate for good 
or for evil on all. I hold that a man who acts for his section, and 
not for the Union, does not comprehend the great duty that he is 
sent here to discharge. Our fathers intended that Representatives 



446 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

should be elected by districts, because then they would be well 
known to the electors; but they meant that when here, and after 
they had taken the oath, they should be just as much the Represent- 
atives of every district in the United States as of the district that 
sent them. That is my conception of our duty. That, I know, was 
the idea of the fathers who made the Republic, and formed the 
House as it is now formed. 

Suppose us assembled together, Mr. Clerk, with these feelings, 
and called on to legislate for the Territories that belong to us all — 
that were won by the common blood and common treasure of all; 
what would we then say? We would say this: "There are certain 
portions of our children in the South who have property which will 
not prove of any worth to them in the cold latitudes of this Terri- 
tory. They cannot go there. There are certain other children of 
this family of ours — poor people, as we call them, meaning those 
who must work for their living — and I hope that men will always be 
compelled to work in some way, with the head or hand, for an hon- 
est living — and here is the territory lying beyond the Mississippi, 
called Kansas and Nebraska, for which Congress has power to make 
all needful rules and regulations; let them go there." In the Terri- 
tories are emigrants from the State of Georgia, from Virginia, from 
all the States of the East and the West. Your own constituents are 
the relations and dear friends of these people. So are mine. They 
are unacquainted with each other ; a heterogeneous people, not yet 
homogeneous enough to make their own laws in harmony. 

When we prohibit Slavery in a Territory, we allow men from all 
the States to go there with the same rights exactly. While a man 
from a slave State may not take a slave into the Territory and hold 
him in Slavery, neither can one of my children in Ohio purchase a 
negro in Kentucky and take him there, and hold him as a slave. Is 
not that equally just to all? I know that you say every one should 
go there with his property, of whatever kind ; but I say that this law 
of inhibiting Slavery is equal and just to men of every section. 
Everybody may go there with the same sort of property. We make 
no distinction between any. If it be a Territory in which slave labor 
is unprofitable, you ought to be rebuked, from the mere motive of 
economy. Let us look at it as a mere question of economy. The 
whole country belongs to us, and you are our children. We are to 
■divide it among you. Suppose you have one son who can work in 
a warm climate, and another who can work in a cold climate. In 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 447 

dividing your estate between them, you give to each that portion of 
it which suits his wants in that respect. You have one a mechanic ; 
you do not give him a farm, and set him to work as a farmer. Nei- 
ther should you take the negro to work where his labor would be 
unprofitable. 

Mr. Reagan — I understand the gentleman is now speaking for the 
Republican party. 

Mr. Corwin — No, sir ; I am speaking for a leader of that party. 
[Laughter]. 

Mr. Reagan — Then I ask the gentleman for himself, and not for the 
Republican party, if he recognizes the right of people owning slaves to go 
into a Territory in a Southern latitude, and occupy that Territory with their 
slaves with the protection of the Government ? 

Mr. Corwin — I will speak for myself. If you acquire territory 
by treaty, and the people in it hold slaves, I would not, against their 
will, interfere with Slavery there. I would act, in that particular, 
just as the Congresses of 1798 and 1804 acted in relation to Missis- 
sippi and Orleans Territories. If Slavery were there, I would not 
disturb it. I would not interfere with the rights of property against 
the will of the people ; and if you get territory where the white man 
cannot work, I would permit people of the States to send their 
slaves there ; and when there, certainly, I would protect them, if 
protection were wanted. I agree with the gentlemen of the extreme 
South in one point: whenever you can show me that, under the laws 
and Constitution of the United States, (as you phrase it, under the 
Constitution,) Slavery is lawfully in a Territory, I hold it to be a 
duty to make laws to protect property lawfully held anywhere, if 
such laws be necessary for its protection ; but remember, I do not 
believe the Constitution takes Slavery into Territories, or anywhere 
else. Slavery is the creature of local, municipal law. Whenever 
you acquire a territory where Slavery exists, if you have a treaty 
sanctioned by two-thirds of the Senate of the United States, you are 
just as sure of Slavery as we are sure of what we call "freedom" in 
Ohio. I dare say that some of my tender-footed brethren on the 
Republican side of the House wince a little at that, but I act upon 
possibilities and upon probabilities. 

And there is another thing which you do, which is totally at 
war with one of the fundamental maxims of our Government. You 
begin by sending forth to the world the very doctrines of Rousseau's 



448 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

social compact — that Government claims its rightful authority from 
the consent of the people governed. And then you conquer a coun- 
try, and a part is ceded to you, but no consent of the people thus 
ceded is ever asked. You seize them and govern them, whether 
they consent or not. You did not ask the people of California, or 
New Mexico whether they were willing to be American citizens. 
You took the treaty, and you took the lands and the people. So 
when you get Cuba — which you will not get soon ; but whenever you 
do get it, if you ever should, Slavery will be there ; and the Spanish 
Government, when it cedes that island, will say that you shall take 
the people, with all their rights of property. That is sure to be 
done, if the time ever arrives when you are to acquire Cuba. So if 
you acquire territory where white men cannot work. There are such 
countries ; I have been told so by the best physicians I ever knew. 
What do you want with such territory, unless you have slaves, if 
it be true that free negroes will not work without coercion? If I 
were the father of all the world, and I had some children who 
could work in cold and temperate climates, I would send them there 
to work; and if I had other children who could work only in the 
warmer portions of the globe, I would send them there ; and if they 
would not go, I would make them. I am not speaking of constitu- 
tional law. I look at society as it is. What will you do with the 
men who will not work, and will eat? I know what we do with 
them in Ohio. We send them to the poor-house, and make them 
work. Some, for reasons known to the law, are sent to the peniten- 
tiary, where they are deprived of their inalienable right, to liberty. 
That is a question we cannot discuss here. I state it for the benefit 
of weak brothers, who never think about the matter. [Laughter.] 
If my white son would not work in the proper place for him, I 
would punish him ; and if I had a black man, who, like the ana- 
conda, fattened upon malaria, and only lived well in a rice swamp, 
there I would make him go. 

I know that I have no right to do anything of that kind. The 
moral right, according to our conceptions of God's will, meets with 
a different interpretation in the different countries of the world. 
One of the most honest, upright men of all the Roman Emperors I 
ever read of — I mean Vespasian — took thirty thousand Jewish pris- 
oners when he went to conquer Judea. He pledged the honor of a 
Roman general, that, if these men surrendered, they should receive 
quarter and be treated as prisoners of war. When he came to hold 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 449 

a council of war as to what disposition should be made of them, 
every officer was for killing them. They said, "If the Emperor 
trust them upon parole of honor, there is no faith in the Jews, and 
to-morrow they will be killing us." The question was put like the 
celebrated speech of a Scotch colonel, in the army of Gustavus 
Adolphus. The commander-in-chief, before a certain engagement, 
ordered that each one of his colonels should make a speech at the 
head of his regiment. The old Scotchman, who had never done 
anything in his life but cleave skulls, said: "My lads, ye see those 
fellows in black. Well, if ye dinna kill them, they maun kill you." 
That was a difficult question to be decided by Vespasian's council of 
war. How was it compromised ? The honor of a Roman general 
was pledged. (So is mine. I am sworn to obey the Constitution 
and the laws of the country.) It was agreed that one portion of the 
prisoners should be spared and treated as prisoners of war, that 
another should be sold into Slavery, and the remainder put to death. 
Alas ! for poor human nature. We will always kill a man when we 
know he is going to kill us. It seems, then, that having no such 
power as I have stated, nations, like families, must let each other 
alone. 

The slave trade, as I have said already, was an abomination 
from the beginning. It was wrong in the beginning. Year after 
year I have listened to talk, on one side and on the other, about this 
question of negro Slavery. I was a delegate to the Colonization 
Society, which met at the Smithsonian Institution. I thought I would 
go there and see whether I could hear a solution of this question. 
One of the most eloquent and learned men I have listened to for a 
long time made an address. He was one of those divines who, I 
know, will preach what he believes. He said that the finger of God 
was plainly to be seen in the slave trade. In old times, Governor 
Oglethorpe endeavored to keep Slavery out of Georgia, as every 
man knows who has read the history of that State. It was brought 
there, and he could not keep it out. Whitfield, that eminent divine, 
was there. He told Oglethorpe to let Slavery alone, for the hand of 
the Almighty was in it. He said, "we have been trying to Chris- 
tianize the world ; we are at it now ; and what progress have our 
missionaries made? Very little, or none. Let the poor negro be 
brought into this country, and whether his master likes it or not, he 
will imbibe some idea of the morals of Christianity, and in due time 
the right missionaries will be those of the black race, to return 
30 



450 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

among their own color. Thus, that wicked man who sold this people 
into Slavery, in the hands of Heaven will have proved the instru- 
ment of bringing them to Christianity and civilization." 

If the finger of God be in Slavery, let the Southern man take 
care how he treats these missionaries, these instruments of Heaven 
for the great work of Christianizing the heathen African. Keep 
them in Slavery if you will ; but, as that Whitfield said, you cannot 
take a negro and keep him ten years in this country without his 
becoming a more enlightened man than when he left the shores of 
Africa. Take care that you give him freely that light. The pres- 
ent generation of negroes sprung from those brought here a cen- 
tury ago, will, I believe, compare favorably with the most intelligent 
of their own countrymen in Africa. Let us, then, not despair of the 
ultimate fortunes of the negro races. We hear of what is doing in 
Liberia. I must remind my boastful white brethren here, that the 
history of the legislation in that black colony would warrant any one 
in the conclusion that our colored brethren there would have organ- 
ized their Congress with more temperate judgment, and in much 
shorter time, than we have consumed in our efforts, which, up to 
this time, seem to promise no very speedy result. [Laughter]. 

Who knows, sir, but that Slavery may accomplish the great 
work of Christianizing and civilizing the African race? May we not 
hope, that while these people are content, even in Slavery, to 
advance in civilization in this country, and to develop the resources of 
countries which it is said can be developed by slave labor alone, the 
great ends and purposes of Him who sits enthroned in the circle of 
the Heavens will be accomplished by some agency to us as yet 
unknown. 

That wonderful man, Cyrus, did not know that he was execut- 
ing the commands of God, when he invaded Babylon, as it had been 
foretold. So it may be that you, who so much admire the institution 
of Slavery — and I do not mean to discuss its merits here — like 
Cyrus, may be the chosen instruments, even against your ow^n 
wishes, to work out the purposes of Almighty God. When your 
negroes shall have reached the point of civilization which will fit 
them to enjoy that portion of liberty which a rational Government 
may give them, then they will no longer be your slaves. They will 
then stay and work with you for moderate wages, cheaper than the 
white man can, or they will go abroad, such of them as choose to 
go, on the great errand of the great Master of us all, to carry the 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 451 

light of His Gospel to a benighted people, I think that looks plau- 
sible enough. Nothing in this debate has given me so much pleas- 
ure as listening to the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Davidson], 
when he told us upon this side of the House, that the Gospel is 
preached upon his plantation in Louisiana, just as it is preached in 
the churches in the North. And so Southern members assure me it 
is everywhere in the South. When the master conducts himself in 
that way to his poor, ignorant slave, he will be enlightened. 

If it be possible for the black man — and that is a question upon 
which I am no philosopher — to rise by slow and gradual degrees to 
that intellectual and moral eminence which shall qualify him for 
another state than that which he now occupies, depend upon it, mas- 
ters, when the time comes, will be willing to assent to the change of 
his condition. So I think Slavery, so I think history, teaches us. 
But in the meantime I admit that there are a great many evils con- 
nected with the system. 

I assure gentlemen of the South that that kind of discipline 
which our education and mode of life at the North give us does not 
allow us to be quite so free in the indulgence of these fits of ill tem- 
per which come upon us at times, whether in the North or South, 
or in the expression which may be given in words to that frailty. 
You are good and honorable gentlemen, but you make entirely too 
m,uch noise for our Northern tastes, [laughter] and you are "too 
sudden and quick in quarrel." But do not misunderstand the people 
of the North. Their education and training teach them to govern 
their passions. That is just the difference between us. But when 
the quarrel does come, which to them appears just, why, then I will 
not enter into recognizance that they will keep the peace. I have 
seen it tried before now. 

Why, then, shall we not have harmony? I assert here — and I 
care not for anybody's criticism — that this Slavery question would 
not exist two hours in this House, if you passed a resolution not to 
acquire any more territory for ten years. If it could be that there 
should not be another Presidential election for ten years, that of 
itself would bring peace. The cause of discontent and strife, in a 
great measure, is, that we must have a Presidential election in a few 
months. You do not want any more slave territory. How will you 
fill up Texas, which has been generously devoted for all the surplus 
slaves for fifty years? Do you expect to find a milder climate or a 
better latitude? You quarrel with the people of the North about 



452 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. ^ 

the settlement of Kansas. There are four States for you to fill^ 
where you can go unquestioned. Go first and bring into cultivation 
those fertile lands yet unoccupied, before you think of another 
expansion of territory. You will not go there, but stand here quar- 
reling with us. Northern Republicans, because you cannot get more 
territory. If you had more territory, you could not settle it, because 
you have not the slave labor. 

A gentleman upon the other side of the House called out to us 
the other day: "Disband your Republican party; disband it; you 
threaten the peace of the Union." Sir, I am not afraid of this 
Union. I see plainly enough that I can save it in the last extremity, 
just by letting a Democrat be elected President. [Great laughter.] 
Ever since I found that out, I have cared little what you say about 
danger to the Union. The gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Barks- 
dale] declared, also, that his State would go right off out of the 
Union, in the event of the election of Mr. Seward. The people of 
the State of Mississippi may walk out, but the State never will. 
Why, sir, I have heard of this thing ever since I have heard any- 
thing in public affairs. In 1833, South Carolina was determined to 
go out of the Union, because of what she deemed an excessive duty 
on foreign goods. Pennsylvania was going out because we taxed 
her whisky in 1794; and Massachusetts thought the Union was 
endangered when Louisiana was purchased. Each and all of these 
States yet rernain, and are, I trust, loyal to the Union. I have lived 
through three dissolutions of the Union myself, [great laughter] and 
the Union is stronger to-day than when its dissolution was first 
threatened — stronger than it was in the beginning. The State of 
Mississippi is a glorious little State, covered all over with cotton ; 
and, in my judgment, she will be "cotton to" the Union to the last. 
[Laughter.] All these planets which revolve around this great con- 
stitutional center, whence truth, light, political knowledge radiate, 
may threaten to fly off occasionally. Mississippi may seem to fly 
off in some eccentric orbit, but she will soon return to her proper 
perihelion. I do not say how she will do it, but she certainly will 
do it of her own accord. Let us then hear no more of this angry 
talk about disunion ; but, like men, like brethren, as we are, work 
earnestly and happily together for the common good of all. 

As to this question of Territorial legislation, touching Slavery in 
the Territories, let gentlemen pause upon that, and consider before 
they rush to conclusions, I tell gentlemen of the South — and the 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 453 

day will come when they will remember my advice — not to trust 
Northern people to make laws of their own in the Territories for the 
exclusion or protection of Slavery. I do not care where you go, in 
any latitude under the heavens where a white man can live and work, 
the Yankees will go there too. Wherever clocks can be used or sold, 
there they will be. If they come to learn that it is the law of the 
Republic that the stains of the country is fixed forever by the first 
inhabitants, instead of settling that status here, among men who are 
responsible to the country and to history, they will settle the ques- 
tion as they did in Kansas. They will always beat you, if you open 
the question in that way. Let this calm, deliberate, legislative 
assembly of gentlemen, who legislate for the whole Union of thirty 
millions of people — let them determine whether it is better that Slav- 
ery should go there or not ; let that question come here, where we 
look at this great country and all the Territories we have, and all we 
may ever acquire, as common patrimony, alike of all the States, and 
all the people we represent. 

The population which usually goes into new Territories is gen- 
erally led by an eager and sometimes wild spirit of adventure. The 
people will keep out the negro, because they have no negroes of 
their own, no slaves of their own. I care not whether the Territory 
be at the north pole or near the equator, they will go there, and will 
keep your negroes out, if you allow them to determine whether Slavery 
shall be there or not. I should think that any man who has looked 
at the history of Kansas for the last three years, with reference to 
this matter, will not doubt my conclusions. In consequence of Con- 
gress giving up this great conservative power to make laws for an 
uncongenial, heterogeneous people, civil war raged for three years 
over the beautiful plains of Kansas, where there should have been 
nothing heard but the jocund whistle of the plowman driving his 
team to the field, and where nothing else or worse would have been 
heard, if Congress had only made laws to govern that Territory, and 
sent its Governor, and, if necessary, troops, to execute the law. You 
made an experiment there, and you know the result. 

What have you in another Territory now ? You say you cannot 
make laws for Utah. You have denied the power of Congress to 
make laws for the Territories. What is Utah? A blot on the fair 
pages of your history, which all the waters of Lethe can never wash 
out — a foul, incestuous den of miserable adulterers and murderers — 
a disgrace to a civilized and Christian country. That is what comes 



454 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

of this glorious new doctrine which you have propagated on all sides. 
That comes of your parting with the wise usages and the wise insti- 
tutions of your fathers ; and so it will ever be, the moment you aban- 
don those well-established, constitutional rules fixed by the founders 
of the Republic. You have abandoned the great highways of the 
past — the good macadamized roads made for you — every mile-stone 
of which was red with revolutionary blood ; you have strayed away 
from them, and wandered after wills-o'-the-wisp into swamps and 
by-paths. All that the Republican party wish to do, is to stand up 
and call you back as a mother calls to her lost child, and put you on 
the safe old road again. They call upon you to come out of the 
wilderness; to quit the shedding of each other's blood in fratricidal 
war for the right to have this or that law ; to let the Congress of the 
United States, who represent the fathers, the brothers, the sisters, of 
the peaceful emigrants who have gone into the Territories, consider 
what is best for their children and friends. But abandon, as you 
have abandoned, the institutions of your Fathers, and there will be 
neither peace nor progress in the Territories. There will be strife 
here, and civil war there, and wild confusion will reign supreme. 

The wise prophet of Israel, after he came down from the moun- 
tain with the law in his hand, and found his brother Aaron worhip- 
ing a golden calf which he had made, was so angry that he threw 
down the tables of the law, and broke them. He determined that 
that wicked people should never have an opportunity of worshiping 
any more goiden calves ; he made all the women bring in their trink- 
ets and golden ornaments, and melted them down in one mass. Let 
. us, in the same spirit, bring in these miserable idols of ours ; sacrifice 
them on the common altar of our country ; shake hands, forget and 
forgive. 

And now, before I sit down, let me ask again, are the destinies 
of this mighty Republic to turn on the publication of a pamphlet? 
You know that the gentleman whom we have nominated will make a 
just and impartial Speaker. Concede that for once. Concede that 
we will have to elect by a plurality. I think that, if we could, we 
ought to elect by a majority. There is something symmetrical in it. 
You say, he should be elected by a majority, because, in the happen- 
ing of two or three very remote contingencies, he may become Pres- 
ident of the United States. But, as I said yesterday, no President 
or Vice-President will ever be found, both amiable enough to die and 
let the Speaker take that place. We will not consider that contin- 



ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 455 

gency. If we cannot agree upon one man, is it possible, in the 
name of the American people, that we cannot find some man in this 
Congress who is fit to preside over this House? 

It has been stated that I said that I would vote for Mr, Sherman 
till the last trump should sound. A better man than I am changed 
his mind. David, King of Israel, repented of what he said, when 
he remarked, "I have said, in my haste, that all men are liars." I 
concede that fact, when I state now that I am willing to vote for any 
one almost who can be elected. If this protracted contest means any- 
thing, we cannot elect a Republican ; we cannot elect a Lecompton 
Democrat ; we cannot elect an anti-Lecompton Democrat ; and though 
there may be as many shades of party as Jacob had stripes in his cat- 
tle — I do not know how many — it seems that we cannot elect any 
one of them. I know of but one man in this House who does not 
belong to any party, and I have thought that perhaps we might unite 
upon him. The gentleman from New York [Mr. Horace F, Clark] 
belongs to no party ; he will not act with any party ; does not love 
any party ; does not hate any party ; does not care for any party. 
[Great laughter]. Why not elect him ? 

Mr. Clerk, I believe that I am abusing my priviles here. [Cries 
of "Go on!"] 

I hope the observations which I have made, Mr. Clerk, forced 
from me without any of that preparation which is usual, may not be 
entirely worthless. Whether we consider this ever-recurring ques- 
tion of Slavery as resting within our unrestricted discretion, or 
whether we regard it as fixed and limited by constitutional law — in 
either aspect, with good sense, guided by true patriotism — there is 
nothing to be feared. The way through the future is, in my judg- 
ment, open, clear and plain. We cannot be so weak as to give way 
to childish fears, or sink into lethargy and despair. On the contrary, 
let us "gird up our loins" to the work before us; for upon us this 
duty is devolved. We cannot escape from it if we would. Let us, 
above all, preserve our Constitution inviolate, and the Union which 
it created unbroken. By the lights they give us, with the aids of an 
enlightened religion, and an ever-improving Christian philosophy, let 
us march onward and onward in the great highway of social prog- 
ress. Let us always keep in the advancing car of that progress — 
our book of Constitutions and our Bible. Like the Jews of old, let 
the ark of the covenant be advanced to the front in our march. 
With these to guide us, I feel the proud assurance that our free prin- 



456 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

ciples will take their way through all coming time ; and before them 
I do believe that the cloven-footed altars of oppression, all over the 
world, will fall down, as Dagon of old fell down, and was shivered to 
pieces in the presence of the ark of the living God. 

But if we halt in this great exodus of the nations ; if we are 
broken into inconsiderable fragments, and ultimately dispersed, 
through our follies of this day, what imagination can compass the 
frightful enormity of our crime ! What would the world say of this 
unpardonable sin ? Rather than this, we should pray the kind Father 
of all, even His wicked children, to visit us with the last and worst of 
all the afflictions that fall on sin and sinful man. Better for us would 
it be that the fruitful earth should be smitten for a season wdth bar- 
renness, and become dry dust, and refuse its annual fruits ; better 
that the heavens for a time should become brass, and the ear of God 
deaf to our prayers ; better that Famine, with her cold and skinny 
fingers, should lay hold upon the throats of our wives and children ; 
better that God should commission the Angel of Destruction to go 
forth over the land, scattering pestilence and death from his dusky 
wing, than that we should prove faithless to our trust, and by that 
means our light should be quenched, our liberties destroyed, and all 
our bright hopes die out in that night which knows no coming dawn. 



ON THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF 
THIRTY-THREE. 



The second session of the Thirty-Sixth Congress met in December, i860, after 
the election but before the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln. The distracted state of 
the country immediately engaged the attention of both branches. In the House a mo- 
tion was made, "That so much of the President's message as relates to the present 
perilous condition of the country, be referred to a special committee of one from each 
State." This was adopted by a vote of — ayes, 145 ; noes, 38. The committee was 
appointed by the Speaker ; it consisted of thirty-three members, with Mr. Corwin as 
chairman, and it embraced some of the most eminent men in the nation. On January 
jyt]i^,i86l, Mr. Corwin presented to the House the report of the committee, which 
consisted of a series of resolutions and a joint resolution to amend the constitution of 
the_IJnited -States.; an act for the admission of New Mexico into the Union ; and an 
amendment to the fugitive slave law, and the law relating to fugitives from justice. 
The report of " the committee of thirty-three " being under consideration on January 
2ist^..j[86i, Mr. Corwin spoke as follows: 

Mr. Speaker : It is not my intention to occupy the time of 
the House this morning with the submission to them of remarks 
upon many of the topics which are naturally associated with the 
great questions before us. I shall have discharged the duty which I 
feel incumbent upon me as one of the committee of thirty-three, 
when I have presented the subjects which have been introduced, 
with a few very brief explanations of the motives which have 
induced the committee to recommend the adoption of the resolu- 
tions and bills which accompany their report. 

It is about thirty years since I first took a seat in this House as 
a representative from the Congressional district in Ohio in which I 
now reside. Two years after that time I was called upon to act in 
my representative character upon a subject very nearly akin to, if 
not identical with, that which now widely distracts the public mind 
from one end of this vastly-extended republic to the other. At the 
time to which I now allude, a portion of the southern people of this 
country, led on then, as now, by the State of South Carolina, had 
declared, in a convention of their people, that the then existing laws 

levying duties upon foreign merchandise, in its judgment being 

(457) 



458 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

unconstitutional, had absolved that State from its obligations to the 
Union, She did not then actually attempt to secede. I believe 
that was not the term then used to signify the action of that State. 
She proposed to strike down the laws of the United States within 
her limits ; and this was denominated nullification. 

This movement of South Carolina met with little sympathy at 
that time from the other southern States of the Union. Other 
causes for the present distraction of our Union are now assigned ; 
but the same mode of accomplishing it is adopted substantially. It 
was then alleged that a supposed unconstitutional act of Congress 
was to be adjudged of and decided upon in the last resort by any 
and every State in the Union that might choose to assume jurisdic- 
tion of the question. South Carolina had determined for herself, 
and her decision was then announced, that this act, levying duties on 
foreign merchandise, was unconstitutional, and, in its nature and in 
its tendency oppressive to the people of that section of the Union. 
Therefore she would withdraw herself from the Union, and establish 
an independent republic of her own. The doctrine nOw asserted in 
some of the States is, that an unconstitutional act, passed by the 
Legislature of a State, is of itself a ground for a withdrawal from 
the Union whenever any State shall choose to consider such law 
a violation of any provision contained in our Federal Constitution. 

I little thought, when that unhappy difficulty which so much 
excited the public mind from 1831 to 1833 was composed, that at 
the near termination of my natural life, and the still nearer approach 
to the close of political service, I should ever be called upon again 
to give a vote or utter a word which would have any application to 
a question of such fearful import. But, sir, I believe the pages of 
history will show that in every stage of human progress, from the 
beginning of the time when man began to be an occupant of this 
earth, his restless and unquiet nature, while it has prompted him to 
great improvements, has often led him to forsake the present good 
for some vague hope, never to be realized, in the future. 

Any one who had read the history of one of the greatest 
of the empires of the world, especially of its decline and its disper- 
sion into fragrants, might have well suspected that at some period in 
the history of this confederated republic a tendency to fly off from 
the center of attraction would, sooner or later, be exhibited in some 
of the States ; and that from that cause, as the makers of the Con- 
stitution, some of them did believe, we might expect, at some day 



OlSr REPORT OP COMMITTEE OF THIRTY-THREE. 459 

or Other, an attempted dissolution of the bonds which hold us 
together as one people. 

Such is now our condition, and that unhappy state of things has 
this day brought us to the consideration of the means by which the 
threatened catastrophe may be averted. We are called on to 
exhaust every means possible to accomplish a peaceful adjustment of 
present difficulties, and if these should fail to effect the desired end, 
then we must determine whether this government has the right and 
the power to enforce the laws of the United States, and hold and 
protect the property of the United States any and everywhere 
within its territorial limits. 

The word coercion has been made one of very fearful import by 
some, when used to signify the power of the general government 
to compel individual obedience to its laws. Much useless contro- 
versy, I think, has been had on both sides of the House touching 
the power of the United States to coerce a State. The Constitution, 
in my judgment, does not look to the coercion of a State. It only 
proposes to enforce obedience to its provisions upon the people of 
the United States, and I have always supposed it conveyed to the 
United States Government the right and the power to resist and 
punish all forcible opposition to its laws, offered by any number of 
persons, whether acting upon their own responsibility, or under the 
assumed authority of any State or combination of States. 

But it is not my purpose now to discuss this question. My 
mission to-day is one of conciliation, of peace. If grievances, real 
or imaginary, are presented to me by one or more members of this 
great family of States, I am ready to consider them, and employ 
every resource within my power to remove or redress wrong, if 
wrong has been done ; to soothe anger if it exists ; to remove 
unfounded prejudices, or explain unhappy misunderstandings; to 
heal wounds if there be any ; not to irritate and intensify them ; if 
danger is apprehended to the rights of any portion of the people, I 
am ready to shield them from even the apprehension of danger, by 
fortifying their rights with further constitutional guarantees. Show 
me the wrong, and I will redress it if in my power ; point out the 
danger, and I, if possible, will offer every security against it, and 
pledge every power of the government to avert it. To effect these 
beneficent purposes, the committee have diligently labored, and have 
instructed me to report the bills and resolutions before us. 

Mr. Speaker, I cannot, will not, give up the belief that, if the 



460 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

people of the United States, in the States north as well as in the 
States south, can be satisfied that the causes of complaint which 
have led to these strange and, as I think, unwarrantable movements 
of the southern States, have any foundation in fact, these causes can 
be, and will be, at once removed. These, sir, are the grounds of 
my hope that public tranquility will again be restored. 

And now, Mr. Speaker, I proceed to the consideration of two 
or three topics embraced in the report, which, when, I have 
explained, I shall for the present resign this debate into other hands. 
We are compelled, in matters of this kind, to resort to a species of 
information which is not always accurate, but the best at our com- 
mand. It has been alleged, sir, that unconstitutional laws have been 
passed by several of the States of this Union which have a tendency 
to embarrasss the operation of the laws of the United States, and 
especially that for the recapture of fugitives from labor. It is 
alleged that such acts, by some, or by many of the States, were in 
the judgment of the southern States, sufficent cause for dissolving 
their connection with the Union. These laws have acquired the 
popular name of personal liberty laws. They have been so denomi- 
nated by the popular language of several of the States. And here, 
Mr. Speaker, you will find the position which we now occupy differs 
in principle very little, if at all, from that in which we were placed 
by the attempted secession of South Carolina in 1832-33. 

Then it was alleged that a law passed by Congress which had a 
prejudicial effect on any portion of the Union, and adjudged by a 
State convention to be unconstitutional, was, of itself, sufficient rea- 
son for dissolving the Union. Now, it is said, if a State should pass 
a law unconstitutional in its character, that the proper judicature to 
determine that unconstitutionality is a sovereign State ; and that if 
that be so, then a State has the right to sever its connection with the 
Union, and carry its citizens away from all allegiance to the United 
States Government. 

Undoubtedly, if this had been the case, if either of these had 
been considered a sufficient cause for breaking up the Union of the 
States, there have been a thousand cases which might have been 
seized upon with just as much propriety as now. The reports of 
your judicial courts. State and Federal, are full of decisions which 
have declared that such and such laws of the United States were 
unconstitutional; that such and such laws of the States over which 
that judicatory extended were also unconstitutional. It was for the 



ON REPORT OF COMMITTER OP THIRTY-THREE. 461 

very purpose of having a tribunal to whom such questions should be 
referred, whose decisions upon such subjects should protect the citi- 
zens against violations of the constitutions, State and Federal, that 
the supreme courts of the several States, and the United States cir- 
cuit and supreme courts were established ; and the supreme court of 
the United States was established to protect the rights of the people 
of all the States existing under the Constitution, treaties, and laws of 
the United States, against encroachment, by either Congress or the 
States. To that arbitrament, ever since the adoption of the Consti- 
tution, it has been the habit of the peace-loving people of the coun- 
try to submit any dispute of that kind ; and hitherto it has shown 
itself to be well and wisely adapted to the great duty assigned to it. 
But now it is said that the States are the proper tribunals by which 
such questions should be decided. If that be so, then the objects of 
the great men who made this Constitution were not attained. 

The alleged unconstitutional laws to which I have adverted were 
enacted by the States, as they assert, for the laudable purpose of 
protecting the free people of those States from possible danger aris- 
ing out of the manner in which the laws of Congress touching the 
recapture of fugitive slaves was executed in their limits. I might 
here say that I have not approved of many of these laws myself; 
but it is not for me to arraign the Legislature of a sovereign State, 
nor will I lightly condemn any attempt it may make to preserve 
what it deems a just right of the people over whom its legislative 
jurisdiction extends. But, is it not obvious — ^just as obvious to my 
brethren of the South as it can be to anybody else — that if any such 
law has ever existed upon the statute-book of any State of the 
Union, such a law was totally void, unless you assume the proposi- 
tion that the law of the United States with which it comes in conflict 
is void? 

I am looking at this alleged cause of grievance now, as one 
which, if it have any foundation in fact, whatever, can be easily 
removed ; or rather, I wish to say, it cannot possibly have any effect 
upon the interests and rights of the southern men and slavery. The 
law concerning the recapture of fugitive slaves, has, by the act of 
1850, been submitted exclusively to the courts of the United States. 
The State courts have now nothing to do with it, as was the case 
under the law of 1793. It must follow as a legal consequence, if 
they deem the law of 1793, and the amendatory law of 1850, to be 
within the constitutional powers of Congress, that they will execute 



462 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

that law ; and every law, and every State constitution coming in con- 
flict with any part of that law will be declared by them totally void. 

When I assert this as a legal proposition, I presume there is not 
a man on this floor who will not agree with me. If, then, some of 
these laws passed by some States, called northern, have come in con- 
flict with the laws of the United States, they were mere incompetent 
acts of the States, mere incapable attempts by the States to inter- 
fere with the just and proper execution of that law of the United 
States which, when declared constitutional by the courts of the Fed- 
eral Government, is made, by the Constitution under which we live, 
the paramount law of the land ; for that Constitution ordained that 
the Constitution itself, and the laws made in pursuance of it, and the 
treaties made under it, should be the supreme law of the land, any- 
thing in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary not- 
withstanding. 

The committee were painfully anxious to find out whether any 
injury had ever resulted to the property of any southern man by 
reason of this conflict of law. I beg my friends upon this side of 
the House to pardon the use of that common word as applicable to 
the condition of a person who owes labor to another. A slave in 
the slave States is called property, and is treated as such. He is 
also called a person, and treated as such. I may as well stop here a 
moment to say that I am not very much skilled in philology ; but I 
profess to know something about legal phraseology. Upon this 
point allow me to say that, whenever a man owns a thing which is 
of value, and which can be converted into good Federal money, I 
call that thing property. I do not say that man can hold property 
in man; but I do say there is a relation created between slaves and 
the owners who hold them by the laws of the slave States, which 
relation is a thing of value, and may as well be called property, recog- 
nized by the Constitution of the United States, so far as to declare 
in plain terms, that every State is bound to deliver up one of those 
persons who runs away from the man to whom he owes labor ; and 
in that it does recognize the right of any State to establish that sort 
of relation. I pray the day may never arrive when the Federal 
Government shall assume jurisdiction over a subject so clearly 
belonging to States alone, except in the simple case of territory not 
yet formed into States. 

That relation between the man that does owe labor and him to 
whom that labor is due is called, in the familiar phraseology of the 



ON REPORT OF COMMITTEE OF THIRTY-THREE. 463 

country, Slavery. Though I will not be bound by any criticism of 
my own on questions of this kind, yet I may observe, in passing, 
that the word "slave" has been strangely perverted from its original 
meaning. I think if the history of that very word were looked into 
by the gentlemen of the South, it would teach them something worth 
their attention ; and among other matters, that the familiar appella- 
tion which they give the black man was derived from the national 
patronymic of a people now constituting one of the most powerful 
empires existing upon this earth. It was a name given to and 
applied to white men, to blue-eyed men, and to fair-skinned men. 
It was simply "sclave" or '' sclaiwi," a name which, far back in the 
history of the world, was applied to that powerful nation. So many of 
them were in the condition of servants, that it became a common, 
familiar name in after times for all people who were in a state of 
abject servitude. That former slave or slavon now sways his scepter 
over sixty or seventy millions of people, and may safely defy half 
Europe in any contest of national strength. 

The great autocrat who well and wisely presides with imperial 
and despotic sway over that Russian empire, has found it convenient, 
recently, to institute a system of things which looks to the extinc- 
tion of serfage throughout his entire dominions. Strange, indeed, 
are those changes, which time and events bring about. The very 
people, once so abject as to make their national name in after times 
a synonyme with servitude, have become powerful and the owners 
of vast numbers of slaves; and in the plentitude of that power have 
resolved that slavery or serfage shall exist no longer among them. 
Why, then, should we, at this day, carry on this war of words? 
We are concerned about things no matter by what word or form of 
words those things are represented. I think we may as safely call 
that relation of a slave to his owner property, as to give the name of 
property to any other thing which a man by law may buy and sell. 
Whether you call a slave property or a person, you do not change 
the nature of his relation to his owner ; you do not alter his condi- 
tion, nor your obligation to acknowledge it by one or the other form 
of definition. It is enough to know that whether rightly called 
property or persons owning labor, the Constitution declares that if 
they escape from him to whom their labor is due by the laws of any 
State, they may be followed, reclaimed, and shall be delivered up. 
An alleged opposition to the law, founded on the clause in the Con- 



464 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN, 

stitution to which I have referred, forms one of the complaints of 
the South against the North. 

As I have before stated, the law of the United States in ques- 
tion has devolved upon the courts of the United States exclusive 
power to administer and execute it. It has been declared constitu- 
tional by those courts. It follows that it is paramount in authority, 
either to the law of a State or the constitution of a State ; and noth- 
ing therefore which controverts it, either in the organic law or in the 
legislative acts of a State is worth more, as an instrumentality in 
preventing you from recovering your fugitive slave than so much 
blank paper bound up in the legislative archives of any State. It 
will not do, therefore, Mr. Speaker, for us to suppose that gentle- 
men of the South, intelligent men of the South, lawyers of the 
South, statesmen of the South, have ever in their own minds consid- 
ered that this supposed conflict of laws furnishes sufficient cause for 
disrupting the bonds of mutual good-will and brotherly regard which 
grew naturally out of the Constitution and the union of these States. 

It has been sometimes said — and is distinctly referred to in the 
President's message this year — that the northern newspaper press 
has emitted publications which, when circulated in the South, have 
a tendency to excite domestic insurrection. It has been obvious to 
every one that against these wrongs, it becomes every State to guard 
itself. First, I hold it to be the duty of every free State in the 
Union to suppress any publication, designed to be circulated in the 
South or North with the intent to create domestic insurrection. It 
is the plain duty of every State to suppress such publications, and to 
punish their authors. 

I am well aware that I tread on dangerous ground when I treat 
of the proper line to be drawn between the freedom and the licen- 
tiousness of the press. I know how prone have been the rulers in 
other countries to use this dangerous power improperly ; still, under 
proper restrictions, while the jury is left free to determine the intent 
whether good or bad, with which a book or paper is written or pub- 
lished, no good citizen is likely to suffer from the principle I 
propose. 

I hold that every political association calling itself a govern- 
ment has the rightful power to protect its own peace, and by proper 
means to preserve itself from destruction. In a form of Govern- 
ment such as ours, where all the laws are enacted by persons elected 
by a majority of all the people, any publication made with the 



ON REPORT OF COMMITTEE OF THIRTY-THREE. 465 

express intention to excite forcible opposition to the laws, involving 
in its consequences all the dangers of civil war, should be regarded 
as a crime and so treated, and its author and publisher punished 
accordingly. 

We are indebted to the labors of Lord Erskine, in England, for 
the establishment of the true and safe rule on this subject. The 
publication must be such as would necessarily tend to excite domes- 
tic insurrection, and it must be written or published with the wicked 
intent to produce insurrection ; of these the jury should be left to 
judge. Thus, while press and tongue are left perfectly free to exert 
all their powers to reform abuses or promote great public purposes, 
both are only required to so exert their powers and faculties as not 
to promote the destruction of all government ; at least, not to intend 
to do it. What sort of a citizen is he, who, having these easy reme- 
dies for the safeguard of all his rights, instead of appealing to the 
judgment of mankind in careful and well-considered articles, will 
publish an article or utter a speech with the intent to excite insurrec- 
tion against those laws, made by the suffrages of all the people? 
God knows I would be the last man in the world who would do any- 
thing that should prevent the freedom of speech, for that is the only 
freedom I have ever known. But if there is any feature that distin- 
guishes this Government from others — the autocracy of Russia, or 
even constitutional monarchy — it is, that here the people, by their 
chosen representatives, make all the laws, State and Federal. For 
this reason, he who undertakes to put down the laws thus made, by 
incendiary publications, instead of asking the people to vote upon 
the subject as he himself would vote upon it — willfully and wickedly 
excites to domestic insurrection, and should be punished as an 
enemy to the public peace. 

I here dismiss that part of the general subject, not doubting 
that the good sense of the people of the States will, by proper 
enactments at the proper time, secure us against the evils complained 
of I think it has been shown to the satisfaction of every gentle- 
man that if any law has been passed by any State intended to 
impede any southern man in the recapture of one of those persons 
who owe labor to him — in other words, in the recovery of his prop- 
erty — such law is totally void ; it is a mere ineffectual attempt by a 
State, if it intends any such thing, to lift up its puny arm against 
the strong and gigantic power of that Constitution of the United 
States which declares that all laws made in pursuance of that instru- 

31 



466 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

merit, shall be regarded as paramount to State constitutions and 
State laws. Such a law never could have injured any of them. It 
never has. It never will. I know how slow southern men are to 
believe our declarations; I know how utterly destitute they are of all 
correct information in regard to the feelings of the North; I know 
the prejudices they entertain against our population ; I have heard 
the unparalleled and fearful expressions of them in this hall during 
the past two years; I have seen too plainly, from the newspaper 
press of the South, how feelings and ideas dangerous to the peace of 
the country have been instilled into the minds of the masses of the 
people of that section. 

Mr. Speaker, what next is presented to the consideration of this 
House? It has been the constant effort of one class of politicians, 
at both the North and the South, to induce the people of the South 
to believe that a political party, calling itself Republican, when it 
shall have attained the command of the Congress of the United 
States, when it shall have command of the executive department, 
and shall have molded, in some way, the supreme court of the 
United States and the subordinate United States courts, that then by 
some means, which have never been explained, it would use the 
power of the Federal Government to march over the Constitution 
and seize the property of the slave States. This need not be denied. 
The press of the South, the mysterious voices which have been 
uttered in this hall for the last three years, show that this is the 
meaning of southern men when they speak of the dangers to be 
apprehended from the predominence of that Republican party. This 
is not inferred from anything which that party has avowed — not from 
any specific principles which it has adopted — but simply because you 
believe that, ultimately, the great Abolition party, which you always 
magnify in your imagination fifty or a hundred times beyond its 
proper proportions, will obtain the control of the Republican party. 
How are we to disabuse your minds of that idea? How? The 
Constitution of the United States no more gives to Congress, or 
to the President, or to the Courts, power over Slavery in the States 
where it exists, than it gives them power to regulate the policy of 
the British empire in India. 

But you have assumed that the wicked intentions of that party, 
pervading the legislative department, shown in its election of an 
executive, and finally permeating and poisoning the fountains of jus- 
tice in our courts, would overleap all constitutional impediments. I 



ON REPORT OF COMMITTEE OF THIRTY-THREE. 467 

ask you if that is not an event so utterly improbable that it would have 
been wise to have waited for the consummation of those evils attrib- 
uted to the Republican party, rather than to have anticipated an 
event which I shall show you is utterly impossible, even under the 
existing Constitution. Some historian, writing a thousand years 
hence, will look back on this period of our history, and will come to 
the conclusion that the great experiment on this continent, which 
was intended to demonstrate that man was capable of self-govern- 
ment, was near a total failure at this time ; and one of his proofs 
would be the very insanity — I can call it nothing else — which the 
people of the country have exhibited touching this question of 
Slavery. 

Now, if I may be permitted to address myself, not to the 
House, but to that portion of the House which represents the South, 
I would ask any of you, gentlemen, to describe to me how it would 
be possible for the Republican party, or any party that might enter- 
tain so foolish and unconstitutional a design as that which you have 
attributed to us, to accomplish their purpose ? You would reply, that, 
when two-thirds of both branches of Congress are in favor of it, 
they can propose to the people of the States an alteration of the 
Constitution, whereby Congress shall have power over this subject of 
Slavery in the States. That may be. But what sort of change 
would it require in your political system and relations to give to an 
anti-slavery party two-thirds of both branches of Congress? There 
are now fifteen slave States in the Union. There may be another 
one next year. In order to bring about the accomplishment of the 
wicked designs which you say is so certain, and to prevent which. 
States sever their connections with the Government, and plunge 
themselves into anarchy, and, it may be, into the bloody whirlpool 
of civil war, there must be forty-five States in the Union. 

Before, therefore, you can get two-thirds of both branches of 
Congress to agree to that change of the Constitution, while fifteen 
slave States remain, and while you stand firm to your rights and 
your duties, there must be thirty free States in the Union, all con- 
curring in that diabolical attempt to change the whole structure of 
your Government. You have now eighteen States called free. To 
get to the number of two-thirds of both branches of Congress, that 
would ever recommend such a change to the other States of the 
Union, you must have twelve more free States added to these eight- 
een free States. I appeal to every man upon this floor to say 



468 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

whether he really does believe that, in the lifetime of the youngest 
child, born but yesterday, such a state of things will ever be pre- 
sented in this Republic? Where will you get these States from? 
Can you make twelve new States out of any territory that you now 
have? Nobody believes it possible. No sane man believes it pos- 
sible or probable. The very first step that you say is sure to be 
taken, requires that which it is utterly impossible, with our present 
territorial dimensions, ever to accomplish. 

But you say you must acquire other territory ; and you gravely 
sit down here in the halls of legislation, in the only successful Repub- 
lic that has yet appeared, in our form, on the face of the earth, and 
distribute among yourselves the dominions of neighboring States, 
while you are about to break in pieces your own Government 
because you cannot agree as to the occupation of your present 
domain. You are looking towards Mexico, and Nicaragua, and Bra- 
zil, to determine what you will do with all their territory when you 
get it, while you are not sure you will have a government to which 
these could be ceded. 

But suppose two-thirds of Congress do recommend the change ; 
what then is the Constitution and the law? Three-fourths of the 
States must agree to these amendments of the Constitution before 
they become valid. Now, there are fifteen slave States which will 
never agree to it. Consequently, while those fifteen remain, you 
must have forty-five free States to overcome them. And yet, with 
all the intelligence of this country, with $4,000,000,000 of property 
depending upon it, people have been led to adopt a view so utterly 
absurd in the very nature of things, so absurd and unreasonable, 
that no reasoning can be applied to it. So singularly wild is it, that it 
seems nothing more or less than one of those rare and fantastical 
forms of madness to which reason can have no application. But the 
patient North, the peace-loving North, the law-abiding North, has 
come now and offered to you that, if you have a doubt on this subject ; 
if you can believe that there are to be twelve more free States in the 
Union that would recommend such a change in the Constitution ; if 
you believe that you can have twenty-two more free States in the 
Union, so that three-fourths of all the States will authorize such 
change ; if you believe anything of that kind ; if your slumbers are 
disturbed by it ; if the harmony and good will which you bore to 
those abused brethren of yours in the North, has given place to any 
feeling of enmity, we will do away with that enmity, and render it 



ON REPORT OP COMMITTEE OF THIRTY-THREE. 469 

utterly impossible that the right of property in a man who owes 
labor or service to another shall be interfered with by the North. 
This committee, determined to leave nothing unattempted which held 
out promise of peace, have come to the conclusion that they will 
recommend now to all the States of the Union to change this Con- 
stitution of ours on that very subject, so that there shall never be a 
project to interfere with Slavery in the States, originating in any free 
State ; and that if anything of the kind is ever suggested, it shall 
come from a slave State, and shall never be adopted until the indi- 
vidual action of every State in the Union, north and south, shall be 
had agreeing to it. 

The idea of a determination to interfere with Slavery in the 
States has been fastened on the minds of the masses of the South ; 
and, acting on it, they are now endeavoring to break up the only 
republic that can exist, as far as we know, on the face of the earth. 
Out of the anomalies of our time there will be some day writ- 
ten a strange chapter in history. The North American republic, 
maddened by an idle fancy, acts upon that figment of imagination 
as veritable fact, and the pangs of dissolution lay hold of her. In 
this very paroxysm the instincts of her former palmy days are upon 
her. She turns her eyes in intervals of rest to future acquisition, 
and insists upon providing for it in the very Constitution which, in 
her fits of delirium, she tears into fragments. Herself about to die, 
she still covets the lands of her neighbor, Mexico. Now turn to 
Mexico — young, weak, but still struggling Mexico. For forty years 
she has been striving to imitate us. The red cloud of war that, with 
rare intervals, had enveloped her, has, within the last month, parted 
its folds, and disclosed the star of peace. Religious despotism, it is 
said, has received its death wound there. Constitutional government, 
bringing with it liberty regulated by law, is likely to be at last 
realized in Mexico. That for which she has fought forty years is 
hers. That which we have enjoyed for twice that length of time we 
are about to trample under foot as a worthless thing. The evils that 
have crushed, and oppressed, and broken down the unhappy peo- 
ple of Mexico, are about to be adopted by us, to whom she has 
looked as a model for stability in the execution of the laws, stability 
in public sentiment, enlightened, as it is supposed to be, by a free 
press, controlled by an enlightened, educated, brave, industrious and 
religious people. 

I said, Mr. Speaker, that I did not propose to enter into gen- 



470 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

eral discussion. There are some subjects, however, so tempting that 
one cannot avoid pausing in the logical course of argument, to step 
aside and survey for a moment the beauty or barrenness of the land- 
scapes that present themselves along the heretofore untraveled road, 
which we are obliged to tread to-day. 

And now, Mr. Speaker, a very few words on one other topic, 
and I have done : I allude to the proposition we have submitted for 
the admission of New Mexico into the Union as a State. The pres- 
ent census will show the amount of the population now existing in 
what are called the free States, and in all the territory north of that 
magic line of 36° 30'. It will also show with convenient accuracy 
the populations slave and free, existing in the southern States and the 
Territory of New Mexico, lying south of latitude 36° 30'. This Ter- 
ritory is now the great battle-field on which the South and North 
meet in wicked, foolish, fratricidal strife. 

Now, Mr. Speaker, it has often been said by the South, that 
they have not their fair proportion of the lands of the United States. 
If they have not, I ask who is to blame for it ? Grant this to be 
true in fact, which I do not, is there any portion of the northern or 
free States where any man can desire to establish, as an institution, 
slave labor? I think not. If gentlemen of the South will look at 
the map, and mark that portion of it which is occupied by what is 
called "free labor," they will see that there is not one foot of it to 
which it would be profitable to carry Slavery. Whose fault is this ? 
Will you blame the Almighty Maker of the world, because, in estab- 
lishing the climates of this continent, He did not place these north- 
ern States and Territories near enough to the sun to make slave labor 
profitable there ? The northern people are not to blame for the char- 
acter of the climate in which they live. The North is not to blame 
because the country is adapted to corn-fields, and wheat-fields, and 
buffalo-pastures north of 36° 30'. Nor do we of the North arraign 
southern people because the territory south of that line is suitable 
for sheep-folds, cotton, rice, and sugar plantations. Will gentlemen 
of the South make war upon the North because the Creator of all 
worlds, in fashioning this one on which we live, and making it fit to 
be inhabited by his creatures, white or black, guided by infinite wis- 
dom has made more territory in our country profitable for free labor 
than that which is suited to the labor of the slave. 

But you say there is a portion of this territory which it would 
be well to devote to slave labor. You want New Mexico, which lies 



ON REPORT OF COMMITTEE OF THIRTY-THREE. 471 

south of the line of 36° 30', New Mexico, you say, belongs to you. 
Take it ! Take it ! You do not claim, in any of the propositions 
which have been submitted, to occupy with slave labor any territory 
except that which lies south of 36° 30'. Take it ! I repeat, take it ! 
Will that satisfy you? Will you then be content? Alas, I fear you 
will not. Why I fear you will not, I do not now wish to explain. 
You know there is a radical difference of opinion recently — it was 
not always so — between lawyers, touching- Slavery and its rights in 
the Territories. For about sixty years they all entertained the same 
views upon this subject ; but recently it is unfortunately otherwise. 
It is now said that Slavery exists in all our Territories, and that it is 
the duty of this Government to protect it there by laws enacted for 
that purpose. It is the duty of the Federal Government, whenever 
there shall be a domestic insurrection in a slave State, to suppress it, 
and for that purpose the militia of all the States may be brought into 
the field, if necessary. Whenever that event shall take place, the 
constitutional obligation to protect Slavery will then devolve upon 
us all. North and South ; and you will find that thousands of men 
from the North will fly with as much alacrity as the chivalry of the 
South to quell that insurrection. You know they would. If you 
do not, you are ignorant, totally ignorant, of the real character of 
the people of the North. To that extent the Constitution binds us 
to protect Slavery. But we have not supposed that Slavery did exist 
in all the Territories by virtue of the Constitution. We have 
regarded Slavery as confined to States ; we have regarded it as the 
offspring of State legislation — as the child of State constitutions and 
State laws. 

What, then, shall we do with New Mexico ? This committee 
has provided that we shall do precisely what it is now competent for 
Congress to do, and what would put an end to the issues which 
divide us concerning the jurisdiction of Congress over the people 
there. Let it become a State and form its own institutions. Now, 
the question is submitted to us all, why may not that be done ? If 
we cannot agree about the legal right of the Government to do this 
or that, about the legal right of a man to carry his slave every- 
where, let us drop the legal question ; and since there is probably an 
irreconcilable difference between the North and South as to the pow- 
ers and duties of Congress over Slavery in the Territories, I propose to 
take all the territory south of 36° 30' and admit it as a State at once 
into the Union. This is all the territory claimed by the South. It 



472 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

must very soon become a State, and then all agree it may elect to 
have Slavery or reject it. Let this be done now. If the people 
shall ordain Slavery in their constitution, the organic law of 1850 
declares they may do so, and be admitted, to use the language of 
the act of 1850, "with or without Slavery." If they should pro- 
hibit Slavery, they have only exerted a right of which they never 
can be deprived ; and the South will submit, I doubt not, without a 
murmur, 

[Here the hammer fell and Mr. Millson obtained the floor. Mr. Bocock said he 
trusted the gentleman from Ohio would be allowed to finish his remarks. Mr. Mont- 
gomery moved to suspend the rules, to enable the gentleman to go on. Mr. Millson 
said: "I hope that there will be no objection made to the request of the gentleman 
from Ohio, as the House has lately very often extended the courtesy to members to con- 
tinue their remarks beyond the hour allotted to them. I understand that he only 
desires about fifteen minutes more to finish his remarks. That has lately been granted 
to many gentlemen, and I hope it will be granted to the gentleman from Ohio by unan- 
imous consent." Mr. Vallandigham said he trusted that no objection would come from 
his side of the House. The motion to suspend the rules was agreed to and Mr. Cor- 
win was granted leave to conclude his remarks.] 

Mr. Corwin. I thank the House cordially for the indulgence 
thus extended to me, and will promise not to abuse it. 

Mr. Speaker, I hope the House will bear with me while I 
explain to them what perhaps may not have been made apparent as 
yet, the present condition of the Territory of New Mexico. We all 
know that when the organic law for that Territory was enacted by 
Congress, we were verging to the very condition in which we are 
unhappily now placed. It was for the purpose of establishing peace 
among the States of the Union, for the purpose of restoring the 
harmony and concord of the States, that the law of 1850 was passed, 
organizing, among others, the Territory of New Mexico. It was 
enacted by that law that the Territorial Legislature should enact 
laws for the government of the Territory, should report them to 
Congress, and if Congress should disapprove of them, they should 
be null and void. It follows, from a proper construction of that 
statute, therefore, that, until both branches of Congress shall disap- 
prove of that law of New Mexico which was enacted in 1859, 
establishing Slavery in that country, Slavery will be the condition 
of New Mexico. This, sir, must remain her condition until, by a 
vote of the Senate concurring with a vote of the House, that 
law shall be annulled. 

I ask gentlemen, as a matter of fact, what is likely to happen in 
respect to that Territory? How long will it be before you can com- 



ON REPORT OF COMMITTEE OF THIRTY-THREE. 473 

mand a majority of votes in the Senate? While the States are 
bound by their allegiance to the Union, and found in their places in 
that great convocation of sovereign States, how long will it be before 
you can get a vote which will annul that law of New Mexico? I 
shall not answer this question. I know that it is subject to be 
answered variously by minds which entertain various views of the 
future. Be that as it may, we are bound by a law acted on by a Ter- 
titorial Legislature in the exercise of the powers given it. It has, 
under the authority of the Congress of the United States, established 
Slavery in New Mexico, and it exists there this day by a law as pow- 
erful as any law which can be made. If that portion of our vacant 
territory which lies south of 36° 30' be, as it certainly is, the only 
portion of the United States where you wish to establish the institu- 
tion of Slavery, why not, then, take up this territory, form it into a 
State, and admit it ? Then the strife is forever ended. It is inhab- 
ited by people who, only a year ago, established Slavery there. 
Let them vote on their organic law, and come into the Union with 
or without Slavery, as the law of 1850 permits. Thus you will 
remove forever this fearful fire-brand which, if applied to your tem- 
ple of freedom, will require something more, I fear, than the 
patriotism and wisdom of the present generation to extinguish. 
Why not cast from you this apple of discord ? This is all the terri- 
tory of the United States which, you pretend, is adapted to slave 
labor. It is all we can give you ; and it is much more likely that, 
eight or ten years from this time, it will be less difficult to establish 
free States than to extend Slavery there. 

Some have said, some doubtless believe, that the people of that 
Territory are not sufficiently educated in the principles of free gov- 
■ernment to carry on a State government. I do not think it quite 
modest or proper for us at this time to indulge in any harsh criticism 
on the ability of men anywhere to govern themselves. I am willing 
to trust the old Mexican and the old Spaniard of that country; 
and the peon too. Let me say a word about the peon. I myself 
regarded the system of peonage as a great abuse until I came to 
inquire into it I have fully understood it from gentlemen who have 
administered justice as judges in the courts of New Mexico. I find 
that it is a voluntary contract entered into by one freeman to work a 
given length of time for another freeman; and instead of giving 
•damages when the contracting party violates that contract, it is the 



474 SPEECHES OP THOMAS CORWIN. 

law of that Territory to enforce the execution of the contract specif- 
ically. That is the whole of the system of peonage. 

I have no doubt, from the long continuance of that system of 
labor by contract, that it is very well adapted to the condition of 
that people; and, under our judicial system, cannot be greatly 
abused. It is their mode of labor. Instead of giving damages on 
the contract, when the hired man refuses to perform his part of it, 
instead of pursuing him with a constable and writs of execution, 
selling his cow, and starving his children for the want of milk, the 
court says to the hired man, "Work out honestly; fulfill the letter of 
your contract; and if this man, for whom you have contracted to 
labor, and who has advanced money to you for your necessities, or 
for any other object abuses you, the court is open. Come before it, 
and you will have redress." Does anybody imagine a peon will be 
denied redress, when it is remembered that he is a voter in that Ter- 
ritory? I am willing to trust the present people of New Mexico to 
frame a constitution for State government, and trust the future for all 
necessary amendment. If they do not know how to do it, they are 
free to resort to imitation; and, I dare say, if they imitate us, we 
must be satisfied they have done the best they could to produce a 
perfect system. 

Does any man suppose it is possible to combine all the intellects 
which make up this Congress, in both branches of it, so that all shall 
think alike in regard to a constitutional point ? We know how vary- 
ing idiosyncracies give peculiar character to the operations of the 
mind ; we know how inherent selfishness operates upon the weakness 
of men ; but it is enough for us to know that the South does believe 
that a great political party intends to do it some wrong. Whether 
there is any possibility of doing it, or any truth in it or not, it is 
enough to know that the minds of our brethren are disturbed ; that 
their hearts are sad at the prospect, and we ought to submit to them 
such terms as will forever put it out of the power of that party to do 
those imputed wrongs. And now let it be understood by our south- 
ern brethren that we have constitutional ideas upon this subject, 
which it is impossible to eradicate from our minds ; and that, since 
we do differ, and that difference is concentrated, so far as this institu- 
tion of Slavery is concerned, upon the Territory of New Mexico, 
the North generously offers to put that Territory immediately under 
their control, to be continued or not, as the constitution made by the 
people shall ordain. Whether it remain there one or five years, or 



ON REPORT OP COMMITTEE OF THIRTY-THREE. 475 

be driven out, is with the people, who are left free to adopt or reject 
it. And if you should protect Slavery there for ten years to come, 
every year you would find more white population from the free 
States there than would come from all the slave States. Why? 
Because it is not a Territory adapted to the system of Slavery which 
exists in the old slave States. But it is the best and only Territory 
we have to offer. It is all we can give. 

And I now ask you, men of the South, why do you want to go 
there at all ? You have not slave labor enough. In no quarter of 
the globe is there such a demand for labor as there is in the southern 
section of this Union now for slave labor. Before this present 
unhappy state of our affairs had reduced the value of everything in 
the country, a negro, who only a few years ago was worth $400, was 
worth from twelve to fifteen hundred, and yet, in the language of 
one of your eminent men, you declare that you must expand or die. 
How is it that this delusion has been fastened upon you ? The sta- 
tistics of your country and the price of your negroes should have 
told you that you have not negroes enough for the cultivation of 
your soil, and that you will not, in the natural course of increase, 
have negroes enough for fifty years to come, to work the territory 
you already possess. How, then, could you occupy New Mexico? 

I have been examining with some care into the present condi- 
tion of the southern country. I have sought information from those 
who ought to know; I have been advised by gentlemen of the 
South, and I have regulated my judgment entirely by theirs. In the 
State of Texas alone there are three hundred million acres of lands. 
I am informed by a gentleman who has explored that State thor- 
oughly, that one-third of that entire quantity of land can be profit- 
ably occupied in cultivating cotton. Another gentleman has told 
me, that not more than one-fourth could be so cultivated. I have 
taken the latter statement as my basis of calculation. That would 
give seventy-five million acres of land in Texas which can be profit- 
ably cultivated with slave labor. How many million negroes have 
you now? Not quite four millions, counting men, women and child- 
ren. Now, I am told by those gentlemen that one good hand in 
Texas is equal to the production of five bales of cotton. The whole 
product of cotton in this country now amount to about four million 
of bales. Every acre of this land in Texas will produce one bale. 

Therefore, if the cotton lands alone of Texas are cultivated by 
slave labor, they would produce seventy-five million bales of cotton ; 



476 SPEECHES OF THOMAS CORWIN. 

and that they will do whenever the market of the world demands, 
and you can get labor enough to produce that amount Am I mis- 
taken in this ? There lies the land open to the sun, spreading out its 
bosom to you, men of the South, inviting you to come with your 
slaves, and make these acres white with cotton fields. But where 
will you get your slave labor from for all this ? If seventy-five mil- 
lion bales of cotton be made, with an average of five bales to a 
hand, you will want fifteen million working hands in Texas to pro- 
duce them. Now, out of a family of negroes you will not get on 
an average, more than one working hand in three ; two out of three 
being children or the decrepid and aged. So that, for every work- 
ing hand, you have two others, who are not considered hands. 
Then, when you shall have, in the ordinary increase of negroes in 
this country, fifteen million working hands in Texas, you will have 
forty-five million slaves there. Now you have only four million in 
all the United States, and yet you think you are ready to suffocate 
for want of room. You want cotton fields to work. There they 
are ; but where are the slaves to work them with ? 

Now, I take it for granted that Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, 
Tennessee and Arkansas, are not occupied as they might be with 
slavery, and I believe that those five States, if well cultivated, would 
be equal at least to one-fourth of the unoccupied cotton territory of 
Texas. Then you would have one hundred million acres of land to 
be worked by slave labor. Then supposing that each hand produces 
five bales of cotton, you will perceive that you will want nearly 
twenty million working hands, which would give you a negro popu- 
lation of about sixty million, counting men, women and children. 
Now you have only four million ; but you suffocate and choke, and 
must expand or die ; so you say. 

If in these things I have been mistaken, southern men have 
been mistaken. In the face of these statistics, can you present to 
the civilized world — or to the barbarian world — a well-founded neces- 
sity for the expansion of slave territory? Look at the eighteen mil- 
lion white men who occupy the free States, as well as the territory 
north of 36° 30'. There we have eleven persons to a square mile, 
while you have only nine. But you seem not to care for the suffo- 
cation of white men. Territory must be conquered for Slavery, 
when there is a demand for sixty millions of slaves in the country 
now occupied by you, without going to New Mexico at all. Is it 



ON REPORT OF COMMITTEE OP THIRTY-THREE. 477 

not SO? What then are we quarreling about? What are we 
to divide for ? 

But it is proposed that we shall insert in our proposition to 
amend the Constitution, that this line of 36° 30' shall gird the globe, 
and that all south of that shall be open to Slavery; and by this pro- 
posed amendment Slavery is fixed there, whether the people you 
acquire wish it or not. Every one who looks upon the map knows 
that it means the conquest of Mexico, and all the small republics 
in southern America. One of our Mexican acquisitions is now the 
very accursed cause of our ruin ; and yet you covet another. Is not 
this the very madness of the moon? You have four million 
negroes now, and you must increase the number to sixty millions 
before you can want room for slave labor. Fifty years hence you 
will not be able to supply slaves enough to meet the reasonable 
demand for slave labor in the present slave States ; yet you will pon- 
der and speculate upon your condition as it may possibly be half a 
century to come; and unless your dreams are accepted as truths 
now, and provision made for you half a century to come, you rush 
madly on the destruction of yourselves, and not yourselves only, 
but the final destruction and overthrow of the best government 
known among men, and the extinction of the fairest hope yet pre- 
sented to the longing hearts of a world. 

Mr. Speaker, I shall say nothing more now on the subject before 
us. I have omitted all reference to several recommendations of the 
committee. I leave their vindication, if it be wanted, to others. I 
shall not follow the example of some, who lift the curtain which con- 
ceals the quick coming future from us. I have no wish to explore 
the gloomy prospect they have held up to us. I will not now 
encounter the grim specters of despair they present. I will not, I can 
not, anticipate that future, and walk forth among the broken arches, 
the ruined towers, and prostrate columns of this glorious temple of 
freedom, in which the tribes of the South and the North have so 
long worshipped in peace and in brotherly love. That temple still 
stands in all its grand proportions; but it stands alone. Wander 
over all the earth, and you will find no other like it. I will not 
believe that the blows aimed at it, however numerous or powerful, 
shall cause it to rock or reel. I will hope, as they who built it 
prayed and hoped, that it shall stand forever, as it now stands, on its 
own solid and deep foundations. 



OCT 18 1945 



